FUTILE EXTERNALITIES
23/08/24 08:02
The weakness of a legalised gospel is that it relies on ‘externalities’ that leave the heart untouched and the soul as sick as it was. The foundation of its weakness is that it is not the Gospel of Jesus and the apostles – just an aberration and reversion to the ‘self-help be as gods knowing good and evil’ that is Satan’s original deception in its post cross form.
WHAT AUTHORITY?
We have authority in our lives – not as the scribes, when we live Christ our life instead of ourselves our life. This is because self-help under the satanic lie is the foundation of inertia, and the undoing of sonship that would have been with substance and agency.
IMPOTENT
While legalism is based on an unwarranted sin-consciousness it forms no barrier against sin and does not prevent us falling into the degradations of which we hope to remain free. This is to say that as a means of holiness, legalism does not work.
EXTERNALITIES
‘Political correctness’ is a secular form of legalism. Since it is entirely an externality it relies in the first instance on education but then slips easily into manipulation and control. The application of pressure from the outside as a mode of transformation does not work in secular humanism and does not work in the Church. Grace with transformation is ours in the person of Jesus Christ. Even then the degree of our transformation is irrelevant to our acceptance and belonging in Christ. ‘Jesus accepts you not as you should be, but as you are.’ Yet having said that our best humanity is lived when Christ by His Spirit is expressed as us.
RE-CREATIVE POWER
“Because Jesus is the one through whom the world was made and in whom all things hold together, the whole world, and everyone in it, is reconciled to God in Jesus (see Colossians 1:19, 20; 2 Corinthians 5:19). This is the good news of Jesus Christ!!” (1) We are reconciled before we perform. We gain the ability to be better people because we are reconciled to proceed in grace and joy.
CHRIST IN US
“The life I live in the flesh I live by the faith in (or the alternative translation, “of”) the Son of God . . .” “The faith of the Son of God” is to be understood here not just as my faith in him, but as the faith of Christ himself, for it refers primarily to Christ’s unswerving faithfulness, his vicarious and substitutionary faith which embraces and undergirds us, such that when we believe we must say with Paul “not I but Christ,” even in our act of faith.” (2)
In Christ we are in a win/win situation. Our grasp of this in ‘fear and trembling’ is to live in Christ’s gift/performance instead of our own – because the radical nature of this grace to us is counter-intuitive.
(1) Davis Ph.D., Martin M.. The Christian Doctrine of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (pp. 20-21). AsiAfrica Ministries, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
(2) Kettler, Christian D.. The God Who Rejoices: Joy, Despair, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ . Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
WHAT AUTHORITY?
We have authority in our lives – not as the scribes, when we live Christ our life instead of ourselves our life. This is because self-help under the satanic lie is the foundation of inertia, and the undoing of sonship that would have been with substance and agency.
IMPOTENT
While legalism is based on an unwarranted sin-consciousness it forms no barrier against sin and does not prevent us falling into the degradations of which we hope to remain free. This is to say that as a means of holiness, legalism does not work.
EXTERNALITIES
‘Political correctness’ is a secular form of legalism. Since it is entirely an externality it relies in the first instance on education but then slips easily into manipulation and control. The application of pressure from the outside as a mode of transformation does not work in secular humanism and does not work in the Church. Grace with transformation is ours in the person of Jesus Christ. Even then the degree of our transformation is irrelevant to our acceptance and belonging in Christ. ‘Jesus accepts you not as you should be, but as you are.’ Yet having said that our best humanity is lived when Christ by His Spirit is expressed as us.
RE-CREATIVE POWER
“Because Jesus is the one through whom the world was made and in whom all things hold together, the whole world, and everyone in it, is reconciled to God in Jesus (see Colossians 1:19, 20; 2 Corinthians 5:19). This is the good news of Jesus Christ!!” (1) We are reconciled before we perform. We gain the ability to be better people because we are reconciled to proceed in grace and joy.
CHRIST IN US
“The life I live in the flesh I live by the faith in (or the alternative translation, “of”) the Son of God . . .” “The faith of the Son of God” is to be understood here not just as my faith in him, but as the faith of Christ himself, for it refers primarily to Christ’s unswerving faithfulness, his vicarious and substitutionary faith which embraces and undergirds us, such that when we believe we must say with Paul “not I but Christ,” even in our act of faith.” (2)
In Christ we are in a win/win situation. Our grasp of this in ‘fear and trembling’ is to live in Christ’s gift/performance instead of our own – because the radical nature of this grace to us is counter-intuitive.
(1) Davis Ph.D., Martin M.. The Christian Doctrine of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (pp. 20-21). AsiAfrica Ministries, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
(2) Kettler, Christian D.. The God Who Rejoices: Joy, Despair, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ . Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
