GRIP THE REAL GOLD
31/12/24 07:54
Joe got fed up with trying to do religion well and said to the Lord, ‘ Lord, I cant do this any more!’ Jesus replied, ‘Good Joe. Now I will be able to do something with you,’
The vicarious humanity of Christ can be difficult to accept for Christians trained in the self-help that is much of Christianity. This is so because so many elements of religion consist of ‘doing things’ to contrive and deserve a relationship with Christ. Be assured that this might be aspects of Christianity as religion, but it is not the treasure in the field that you have inherited from Jesus.
IT’S INCARNATION
The Vicarious Humanity of Christ is easier to understand when we come to terms with the fact that this treasure that is ours is not religion. It is. Our union with God in Jesus. You did not inherit a religion from Christ. Your inheritance is incarnation, MEANING CHRIST COME IN YOUR FLESH.
We are not born again because we do a bunch of Christian virtues. We are born again when we agree with Christ that He and not our religious efforts are our life.
WHAT BORN AGAIN MEANS
Thomas Torrance puts it this way. “During my first week of office as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland when I presided at the Assembly's Gaelic Service, a highlander asked me whether I was born again, and when I replied in the affirmative he asked when I had been born again.
HID IN CHRIST WHO IS YOU
“I still recall his face when I told him that I had been born again when Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary and rose again from the virgin tomb, the first-born from the dead. When he asked me to explain I said: 'This Tom Torrance you see is full of corruption, but the real Tom Torrance is hid with Christ in God and will be revealed only when Jesus Christ comes again. He took my corrupt humanity in his Incarnation, sanctified, cleansed and redeemed it, giving it new birth in his death and resurrection.” (1)
RELIGION IS NOT YOUR MEDIATOR. CHRIST IS
Jesus Christ stands for you – not bits of you. He is your salvation and the means of your union with Him. He is your union with Himself, Father and Holy Spirit. You are united with Him on acc0unt of Him because His relationship with the trinity is your relationship with the trinity.
You are not separated from Christ and you do not have to do your stuff and do it well to be one with Christ. You are one with Christ in His person. This is our starting place. This is not universalism. It is Christ’s Gospel of the Kingdom – the Kingdom of those who live in oneness with Christ because they agree with Christ that He has made them one with God.
(1) Thomas Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, p.86.