HOW TO BE ALIVE AS A CHRISTIAN
23/12/24 10:00
We are privileged to be woven into God in Christ. Privileged since the cross and privileged because this truth is once again becoming known, which is to say that ‘Christ in you’ is becoming a state of being rather than ‘a saying’ or scriptural quotation. People are becoming aware that one can belong to the Body of Christ with substance or without it. The latter relies on proof texts and the letter that is not alive. The former is the state of being in which we are incarnated with God.
THE WHOLE YOU
This is to say that healing, holiness, and wholeness is found when Christ is our life rather than bits and pieces of religion are our life. The new and living way to spirit and life is found in this scripture. ‘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. This is the day you are born into life in the Spirit of Christ – when His life starts to get lived in your flesh.
BEING AND TRANSFORMATION
Myk Habets observes that “For Torrance, there is no tension between the divinity of Jesus Christ and the divinity of God. The act of God is the divine being of God, and this act is Jesus Christ as the deity of God.” (1) The action of Christ is that He is in you and the new creation of Christ is that He imparts Himself to you. We are graced with His life as grace and re-creation in His image. The genius of this is that you don’t become Jesus of Nazareth but you do become yourself in spirit and in truth. It’s important to grasp this and be disentangled from misguided doctrines and cunningly devised fables.
WORKERS AND SONS
The true self emerges as we are hidden in Christ. The real self becomes us when Christ is our life and self-creation is not.
THE REAL YOU
Richard Rohr talks of the false self and the true self. We grow into the true self as Believers when we begin living Christ our life instead of Christ our religion. This is the beginning of the new birth. Many folks do not live from their true self because they are living from their self-made self. In Christianity this is living from some version of Adam and the law. Many who say that are not legalists are in fact living from a culture of ethical constructs that is identical to the law. Paul tells us the law has been replaced by Christ our life (Gal 2.21).
RIGHT WAY UP
We can make advances in Godliness and personhood when we realise that Godliness is not ‘doing things’ but that Godliness is God incarnated in our being so that we are life-givers in all we do. ‘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. This is the day we are reborn from Adam into Christ our life.
(1) Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance, p.67.