LIVE THE BREAD OF LIFE
19/01/25 09:21
Father did not turn His back on Jesus Christ on the cross and He will never turn His back on you. Jesus was not forsaken by Father and neither are you. By the cross, the atonement and incarnation your oneness with God is certain and real. God In Christ has made steps to you.
VEILS REMOVED
The trinity was one with Christ in the atonement and the cross. The trinity is not a hierarchy and is the communion of equals. So that undoes the support of some for hierarchy and misogyny in church ministry.
One of the common lies that flows from separationist thinking is the oft quoted, ‘God saves you from your sin, not in your sin.’ The truth is He does both. Our righteousness and sin is not something separate from us. It is us.
NEW BIRTH AND NEW LIFE
You are saved from your false self and baptised into your real self in Jesus. This is the new birth of you and the church. Your belonging is based on Christ’s belonging and not on your performance. Don’t expect to live a deep life if you are content with a superficial, populist theology.
Through the cross God has forgiven the whole world – before we have repented. True repentance consists in repenting from an attitude of self-help and independence from God. Repentance can involve repenting from your theology, so as to make room for God’s theology of adoption and belonging.
IN AGREEMENT
By agreeing that we have life in Christ, we are disagreeing with the lies told to Adam and Eve and aligning ourselves with Jesus Christ. In Him Father says to us, ‘These are my beloved sons/daughters in whom I am well pleased’.
YOU ARE RECONCILED – MADE ONE
‘For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation’ 2 Cor 5.19 NLT.
YOUR NOW/UNION WITH GOD
You are reconciled, made one with God. You now live in the at-one-ment secured by God in the Son of God. Because Christ is your life Christ is you in all things pertaining to God. So to live in freedom and joy, live in Christ and not in ‘sin management’.
Thomas Torrance writes, “The cross is a window opened into the very heart of God”. Because the oneness in being and act of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an essential element of what makes God, God, then the atonement must be understood as taking place within this unity and not apart from it. Any notion of an internal division between God and God on the cross fails to understand the implications of the homoousion for the atonement.” (1) The nature of God as trinity is the pattern of your inclusion in the fellowship that is God.
ABANDONMENT UNDONE
God was not separated from Jesus on the cross. God was on the cross in the person of Jesus and God was on the cross on account of the ‘oneness’ of the trinity. Jesus’ cry, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ was not a reproach to Father. It was the living out as a human being who was God, of the cry of abandonment that had risen up from humanity in the centuries following Satan’s lies and Adam’s separation.
FATHER PARTICIPATES IN THE SON
Far from a grumpy Father God turning His back on Jesus and by implication on us, Jesus’ Cross is Father’s cross and the Living Way of drawing all into the fullness of life in oneness with God. Baxster Kruger writes, ‘The death of Jesus Christ was part of a seamless movement in which the Triune God laid hold of the human race and decisively and sovereignly altered its very existence, cleansing it of all alienation, quickening it with new life and lifting it up into union with the Father, Son, and Spirit.’
Union with God is yours by the cross/atonement and by the Spirit. It’s your state of being now. Christ has come in you which means the trinity is alive and active in you. This is your life today. Don’t leave it in the ground like the person who cannot be taught.
(1) Quoted in Morrison, Stephen D.. T. F. Torrance in Plain English (Plain English Series Book 2) (p. 79). Beloved Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.