CHRIST BECOMES YOU
18/01/23 08:58
In his book Repenting of Religion, Gregory Boyd asserts what could be obvious when we observe Christian leaders conducting crusades against sin and sinners as if they are doing Christ a favour. Not only is their vision mainly about sexual sin. It is often so narrow that it excludes political and economic sin and the wickedness of ‘justified injustice’ to the poor and dispossessed.
SUBVERTED CHRIST
In the book Boyd describes a version of Christianity that he calls ‘a Christian version of the knowledge of good and evil’. In this kind of moralism sin can be confined to the most obvious degradations while the most subtle and wide-spread a sins of attitude and culture are ignored and made a virtue.
GOSPEL INVERTED
Legalism as an inversion of the Gospel Jesus began is one of these, as is the justification for killing the earth on the grounds of money-making, jobs and growth. The pandemic made it obvious what insightful people always knew – that certain classes in society are thought to be there to be sacrificed for the benefit of vested interests.
Jesus Christ never launched and anti-sin crusade. He simply declared Himself to be life and the forgiveness of sin and sinners.
GIFTED GOD HIMSELF
Alexandra Radcliff quoting herself and the Torrances writes, “God does not give us abstract benefits; he gives us his very self: Grace is to be understood as the impartation not just of something from God but of God Himself. In Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit God freely gives to us in such a way that the Gift and the Giver are one and the same in the wholeness and indivisibility of His grace.” Paul asserts that Christ is our righteousness (1 Cor 1:30). We receive righteousness not through an external imputation of the benefits of Christ but through a personal participation in Christ’s very self.” (1)
NON-GOSPELS
‘In Christ’s very self’: This is the difference between Christ come in our flesh to be expressed as us and ‘keeping close to Jesus’ which is a subtle legalism and as such a denial of the Gospel of Jesus and Paul since it is self-salvation in the name of Christ.
GENUINE GOSPEL AND REAL LIFE
A devout Christian cried out to the Lord, ‘I cant do all this!’ Jesus replied, ‘Good. Now I can do something with you.’
We don’t have to earn Christ because Christ has earned us. All genuine gospels challenge the notion that having been justified by God, it is now our part to work out our own sanctification. These are a perverse rendering of Paul who stated that if we are still tied to the law then for us Christ died for nothing. This is a very blunt statement of what Christianity is and what it is not. Paul’s most powerful truth statement that combines grace and real sanctification is His ‘Christ our life’ declaration. ‘When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” Col 3.4 NIV. In Christ you will be the glory of God and the glory of you.
(1)Radcliff, Alexandra S.. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T. F. and J. B. Torrance (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 222) (p. 69). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
SUBVERTED CHRIST
In the book Boyd describes a version of Christianity that he calls ‘a Christian version of the knowledge of good and evil’. In this kind of moralism sin can be confined to the most obvious degradations while the most subtle and wide-spread a sins of attitude and culture are ignored and made a virtue.
GOSPEL INVERTED
Legalism as an inversion of the Gospel Jesus began is one of these, as is the justification for killing the earth on the grounds of money-making, jobs and growth. The pandemic made it obvious what insightful people always knew – that certain classes in society are thought to be there to be sacrificed for the benefit of vested interests.
Jesus Christ never launched and anti-sin crusade. He simply declared Himself to be life and the forgiveness of sin and sinners.
GIFTED GOD HIMSELF
Alexandra Radcliff quoting herself and the Torrances writes, “God does not give us abstract benefits; he gives us his very self: Grace is to be understood as the impartation not just of something from God but of God Himself. In Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit God freely gives to us in such a way that the Gift and the Giver are one and the same in the wholeness and indivisibility of His grace.” Paul asserts that Christ is our righteousness (1 Cor 1:30). We receive righteousness not through an external imputation of the benefits of Christ but through a personal participation in Christ’s very self.” (1)
NON-GOSPELS
‘In Christ’s very self’: This is the difference between Christ come in our flesh to be expressed as us and ‘keeping close to Jesus’ which is a subtle legalism and as such a denial of the Gospel of Jesus and Paul since it is self-salvation in the name of Christ.
GENUINE GOSPEL AND REAL LIFE
A devout Christian cried out to the Lord, ‘I cant do all this!’ Jesus replied, ‘Good. Now I can do something with you.’
We don’t have to earn Christ because Christ has earned us. All genuine gospels challenge the notion that having been justified by God, it is now our part to work out our own sanctification. These are a perverse rendering of Paul who stated that if we are still tied to the law then for us Christ died for nothing. This is a very blunt statement of what Christianity is and what it is not. Paul’s most powerful truth statement that combines grace and real sanctification is His ‘Christ our life’ declaration. ‘When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” Col 3.4 NIV. In Christ you will be the glory of God and the glory of you.
(1)Radcliff, Alexandra S.. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T. F. and J. B. Torrance (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 222) (p. 69). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
