HOW WE GOT TO BE ONE WITH GOD
04/06/24 09:42
How can man be one with God? Not by earning it. How does one draw near to God? not by taking steps to Christ. How does one live a holy life? Not by the most subtle legalism of ‘keeping close to Jesus.’ How does one live a healed, whole and holy life? Not by the harmonious development of the mental, physical and spiritual aspects of our being.
How do we become Godly? It happens as we agree with Christ that He is our life. When does this start? It starts when we are born again. ‘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. Our starting point as sons/daughters of God in spirit and in truth) is our abandonment of living religion and our beginning to live in the oneness of God. Jesus draws our attention to union with Himself in the gospels of Paul and John – the atonement/incarnation.
THE WHOLE PERSON APPROACH
There is one genuine whole person approach. It’s the incarnation known as Christ our life. The mystery of this is that we are one in Christ, enfolded in the trinity, yet becoming our true selves as daughters and sons. Jesus is grace and sanctification.
Jesus indicated that religious ploys and sincere legalisms must give way to a direct union with God. Jesus urged, ‘Realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.’ John 14.20. The day we realise this is the day we are born from religion into fellowship with God. The day we realise this, is the day that we pass from Adamic and Mosaic* separation to union with God. This is the day we become alive and fruitful in a new creation way. This is the day we begin to use the treasure of that which is already ours.
REAL RE-BIRTH
Have we considered that our normal could be the result of persistent brain-washing in a deviant gospel? If we have always believed in a flat earth, then the round earth will appear as a fallacy. Like the one normal person in a dysfunctional family appears dysfunctional in the eyes of the dysfunctional gaze. Or the Truth-Teller to a Church is cast as a heretic with the effect that the community becomes invested in blind guides and dullards. If you are observant of politics and religion, you will have noticed that power does not like truth.
COMMUNION OF BEING
The trinity has always been oneness as communion. This is the nature of God and of holiness. God’s holiness is who God is. It’s a state of being in which the persons are part of each other yet distinct. It’s perichoresis. Holiness is not something effete or pious. It’s the combination of love and life that is God. WE ARE HOLY WHEN WE AGREE THAT WE HAVE BEEN INCLUDED. By being included in God’s being as a result of the cross we take on His nature and become sons in spirit and truth by the person of Jesus Christ. We are not Gods but we are sons and daughters of God. We can live this without presumption by believing Jesus and living His person come in our flesh.
WE DWELL IN UNION
Thomas Torrance observes, We inhabit “A union in which divine nature and human nature are united in Christ in such a way that there is no diminishing or impairing of his divine nature and no diminishing or impairing of his human nature. At the same time this is a union which is projected, as it were, into the actual conditions of our estranged humanity where we are in conflict with God, so that the hypostatic union# operates as a reconciling union in which estrangement is bridged, conflict is eradicated, and human nature taken from us is brought into perfect sanctifying union with divine nature in Jesus Christ.”
If you want to be a ‘better self’, the above is the Living Way.
This is the union in which by Christ we have been made one with Him and one with God. It means that by God’s grace we have become enfolded in God. Learn to be at home where He has placed you and live into your world from that position.
^ Who is the Savour who saves is when we are not close to Jesus? Is it us? If so we save ourselves, which is the essence of an aberrant gospel.
*Moses’ temple in the wilderness personified separation from God with its compartments. Significantly union with God is indicated by a ripped Most Holy Place curtain.
#Jesus has two complete natures: one fully human and one fully divine. What the doctrine of the hypostatic union teaches is that these two natures are united in one person in the God-man.
