EXTERNALITIES AS FIG-LEAVES
03/05/24 08:31
If we are unfortunate or just plain stubborn, we will create a god in our image because it suits us. If we have been raised in legalism we will be convinced that God is a legalist because we are. But legalism is one of the most wide-spread and spirit-shrivelling forms of Christianity. We will either make for ourselves rules that take little effort to follow or devise a web of disciplines that seem to earn for us the entitlement we seek.
INEFECTUAL EXTERNALITIES
Externalities such as rules, commandments, church lore, education, social media pile-ons make little difference to the self, if any. They do not effect deep transformation and can make things worse. The humanist world does not know this and neither do Christians whose culture is legalism – which is why in such a state of being we are neither yeast or mustard seed. Life-Givers and transformers live the incarnation and mediate love, grace, spirit and life.
ADDICTS OF IDOLATRY
“Paul’s startling claim that none of us without the intervention and aid of the Holy Spirit ever seek the real God of the Bible (Romans 3:10–12). We create for ourselves a customized deity, as Paul did.” (1)
CLOTHES OF PAPER
But this flesh made god is subtly anti-life and anti-christ. It furnishes the Believer with a false sense of security or no security and at all – which is why in the latter instance, those who have made a religion out of the Second Coming slide into a panic when it appears that Jesus is actually coming right now.
The Holy Spirit reveals to us the real Christ and the authentic Kingdom that we inherit from Him. But if we are intent on maintaining our christ and our gospel in the face of the witness of scripture and the affirmation of the Christian Church – then we are in danger of being marketers of cunningly devised fable.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
Most Churches, despite their differences on the edges, have the same Gospel. With the exception of some that exist in a ‘shelob web’ of legalism that is mistaken for holiness. They have a bent Christology, which is a polite way of saying they are hampered by a false christ with the end result being that they are unable to become a genuine self in the spirit of sonship because they are constrained in the law. We can be alive, be life-givers in Christ 0ur life. There is a living way to be kind to women, to love them and not abuse them and be men in the image of Jesus Christ.
(1) Timothy Keller. Hope in Times of Fear-The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter. 115
INEFECTUAL EXTERNALITIES
Externalities such as rules, commandments, church lore, education, social media pile-ons make little difference to the self, if any. They do not effect deep transformation and can make things worse. The humanist world does not know this and neither do Christians whose culture is legalism – which is why in such a state of being we are neither yeast or mustard seed. Life-Givers and transformers live the incarnation and mediate love, grace, spirit and life.
ADDICTS OF IDOLATRY
“Paul’s startling claim that none of us without the intervention and aid of the Holy Spirit ever seek the real God of the Bible (Romans 3:10–12). We create for ourselves a customized deity, as Paul did.” (1)
CLOTHES OF PAPER
But this flesh made god is subtly anti-life and anti-christ. It furnishes the Believer with a false sense of security or no security and at all – which is why in the latter instance, those who have made a religion out of the Second Coming slide into a panic when it appears that Jesus is actually coming right now.
The Holy Spirit reveals to us the real Christ and the authentic Kingdom that we inherit from Him. But if we are intent on maintaining our christ and our gospel in the face of the witness of scripture and the affirmation of the Christian Church – then we are in danger of being marketers of cunningly devised fable.
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
Most Churches, despite their differences on the edges, have the same Gospel. With the exception of some that exist in a ‘shelob web’ of legalism that is mistaken for holiness. They have a bent Christology, which is a polite way of saying they are hampered by a false christ with the end result being that they are unable to become a genuine self in the spirit of sonship because they are constrained in the law. We can be alive, be life-givers in Christ 0ur life. There is a living way to be kind to women, to love them and not abuse them and be men in the image of Jesus Christ.
(1) Timothy Keller. Hope in Times of Fear-The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter. 115
