DROPLETS AND RIVERS
18/05/24 08:47
Separated from God, the knowledge of good and evil and its issues focussed relativism becomes the obsession of man. An addiction to dualism is a persistent disease that results in political correctness and fragmented Christian living. Dualism’s source in the knowledge of good and evil and the separationism inherent in this split mode of being.
CANCEL CULTURE IS OLD
Separation from God at the Fall meant the separation of the self from the self in individual and social life. The illusion of a bisected reality is exposed in the current obsession with ‘cancel culture’, and in the political construct of right and left. In religion it is seen the notion of sacred versus secular, along with the demarcation of holy from unholy in time and place with its focus on holy days and holy places like temples and churches. In the latter instance it can be mistaken for a relationship with Christ.
LIFE AND DEATH
There is of course a basic dualism at the foundation of reality and this is it. There is life in Christ and death in in the many forms of existence without Him. In Christianity a bent gospel means the difference between droplets of life and rivers of living water.
Paul’s ‘Christ who is our life’ is correct as a statement and accurate as an ontological belief. It is correct because ‘in Him we live and move and have our being’ but suffer a fractured, fragmented being outside of Christ. Thus the notion of a whole person approach by way of obedience to the law is a mistaken. But union with Christ on account of His coming in our flesh is the living way of our wholeness and holiness.
The impossibility of being holy as God is holy is overcome by Christ coming in our flesh so that we the expression of God in Christ.
James Torrance writes, “The New Testament understanding of worship
.. recognizes that the real agent in all true worship is Jesus
Christ. He is our great high priest and ascended Lord, the one
true worshiper who unites us to himself by the Spirit in an act
of memory and in a life of communion, as he lifts us up by word
and sacrament into the very triune life of God.” In Christ we participate in the Christ of God by the Spirit.
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE GODLY
“This is, therefore, not only the heart of our theology of the Lord's Supper but also of preaching. The Reformers spoke of the threefold office
(triplex muns) of Christ as king, priest and prophet, and in
these terms expounded not only the once and for all ministry
of Christ, but also his continuing ministry.” 17
DICHOTS
Dualism can have us living from moralism, defining certain actions as sinful when they are just actions and inventing a mistaken holiness in the grounds of religiosity. For example, like thinking that a routine of church attendance is a relationship with God or that those who don’t go to church are not in fellowship with God. Many in the latter category have more of God than the some of the churched because their relationship is with the reality who is Christ rather than in externalities.
Murder and lying are always wrong. But there are many acts that are just actions which have no moral importance when separated from the context in which they occur. Thus, a hospital can be used as place of healing or a brothel, while a fact can be declared as a truth or framed as a lie. Religion can insulate us from God by only Christ makes us one with God,
A humbug I was raised with was that dancing was ‘wrong’ while the many forms of inhibition were ‘right’.
WORKERS TO SONS
Since the cross the split reality of good and evil has been undone and we are joined to God and His Good in Jesus Christ. The Messianic Jew can now live in the fact that he has a Sabbath Life in Christ rather than just as ‘day’. But there is a day when we cease living in religion and begin to live Christ our life. This is the day we are born again. ‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you’ John 14.20. No dualism here. Just union with God as a state of being.
CANCEL CULTURE IS OLD
Separation from God at the Fall meant the separation of the self from the self in individual and social life. The illusion of a bisected reality is exposed in the current obsession with ‘cancel culture’, and in the political construct of right and left. In religion it is seen the notion of sacred versus secular, along with the demarcation of holy from unholy in time and place with its focus on holy days and holy places like temples and churches. In the latter instance it can be mistaken for a relationship with Christ.
LIFE AND DEATH
There is of course a basic dualism at the foundation of reality and this is it. There is life in Christ and death in in the many forms of existence without Him. In Christianity a bent gospel means the difference between droplets of life and rivers of living water.
Paul’s ‘Christ who is our life’ is correct as a statement and accurate as an ontological belief. It is correct because ‘in Him we live and move and have our being’ but suffer a fractured, fragmented being outside of Christ. Thus the notion of a whole person approach by way of obedience to the law is a mistaken. But union with Christ on account of His coming in our flesh is the living way of our wholeness and holiness.
The impossibility of being holy as God is holy is overcome by Christ coming in our flesh so that we the expression of God in Christ.
James Torrance writes, “The New Testament understanding of worship
.. recognizes that the real agent in all true worship is Jesus
Christ. He is our great high priest and ascended Lord, the one
true worshiper who unites us to himself by the Spirit in an act
of memory and in a life of communion, as he lifts us up by word
and sacrament into the very triune life of God.” In Christ we participate in the Christ of God by the Spirit.
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE GODLY
“This is, therefore, not only the heart of our theology of the Lord's Supper but also of preaching. The Reformers spoke of the threefold office
(triplex muns) of Christ as king, priest and prophet, and in
these terms expounded not only the once and for all ministry
of Christ, but also his continuing ministry.” 17
DICHOTS
Dualism can have us living from moralism, defining certain actions as sinful when they are just actions and inventing a mistaken holiness in the grounds of religiosity. For example, like thinking that a routine of church attendance is a relationship with God or that those who don’t go to church are not in fellowship with God. Many in the latter category have more of God than the some of the churched because their relationship is with the reality who is Christ rather than in externalities.
Murder and lying are always wrong. But there are many acts that are just actions which have no moral importance when separated from the context in which they occur. Thus, a hospital can be used as place of healing or a brothel, while a fact can be declared as a truth or framed as a lie. Religion can insulate us from God by only Christ makes us one with God,
A humbug I was raised with was that dancing was ‘wrong’ while the many forms of inhibition were ‘right’.
WORKERS TO SONS
Since the cross the split reality of good and evil has been undone and we are joined to God and His Good in Jesus Christ. The Messianic Jew can now live in the fact that he has a Sabbath Life in Christ rather than just as ‘day’. But there is a day when we cease living in religion and begin to live Christ our life. This is the day we are born again. ‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you’ John 14.20. No dualism here. Just union with God as a state of being.
