HOLY SPIRIT LIVES TO REVEAL CHRIST
28/04/24 12:48
Holy Spirit mediates the real presence of God. In Holy Spirit we encounter Jesus and our Father. In Holy Spirit we are enlightened as to the real Christ and His true Gospel. We can disregard Spirit’s witness, but not without cost. If we insist on our own gospel; a gospel that is not Christ’s gospel but some derivation that leaves us in separation from God, even though Christ has undone our separation, Holy Spirit will be quenched. If we insist on separation as a religion, Holy Spirit will withdraw until humility opens a door to receive Christ in spirit and truth.
ACCOMMODATED TO A MEASURE OF DEATH
The more the deviation of our gospel from that of Jesus, Paul and John, the more we immunise ourselves against Christ’s light and life. If we love Christ and have a passion for life we will not accommodate ourselves to any austerity gospel. Neither will we sell death in the name of life.
There is an affinity between legalism and ‘oneness theology’ because a law lens defines God as an abstraction, because legalism fosters a religion of abstractions. But the letter kills. It is Christ who is our life.
As our hearts harden in positions that are religious but not Godly, Holy Spirit withdraws until we become open to God’s truth and humble enough to receive His life without measure. Holy Spirit does not abandon us, because God does not abandon anyone. But the Spirit will withdraw and leave us in the measure of death that we have chosen - until our decay or confusion causes us to repent and seek the light that we have denied.
CONFRONTS
“The impartation of the Holy Spirit to us as specifically the Holy Spirit confronts us with God himself in his unlimited Godness and Majesty, God in his utter Sublimity and Lordship. This was brought sharply home to people by Jesus himself when he told them that while evil-speaking against himself might be forgiven, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.” (1)
ELEPHANT RELIGION
Unless we can come to terms with the elephant in the room – the fact that our gospel is not Christ’s Gospel - the Kingdom of God cannot be realised in our community. Holy Spirit and the gifts are not a solution to a faith that retains us in the separation of Adam/Moses while suffocating our union with Christ our life.
ALLIED TO DEATH
By relying on fictions and engaging in all kinds of denial we can lose what we have. It’s amazing how many times apathy, stagnation and fragmentation can befall us and still we do not realise that rather than life as the core of our beliefs we have made an alliance with death – the kind Paul called ‘this body of death.’
‘Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them’ Matt 13,12 NIV.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “May God in His mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may He lead us to Himself.”
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 150). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
