NOT SOME OTHER GOSPEL
17/02/24 11:07
Irenaeus wrote, ‘Jesus Christ, in His infinite love, has become what we are, in order that He may make us entirely what He is.’
Numbers can tell us a lot about quantities but not so much about relationship and spirituality. ‘Being’ and our ‘being’ in God simply is. In the beginning we were part of God as daughters and sons. Since the cross we are part of God as sons in spirit and in truth. This is so for us in principle. It is real for us when we believe it. This is the merit in believing the gospel of Jesus and the apostles and not some ‘other gospel.’
UNION IS LIFE
Irenaeus also wrote, ‘Communion with God is life, and separation from God is death.’ This is why the illusion that Christians are separated from Christ and that union with God is found through the church, its clergy and good works is so disastrous for personal peace and the advance of the Kingdom of God.
We are complete in Christ in every way. Christ your life means the person of Christ as you. It does not mean Christianity as you or a moral programme as you. But when Christ is us we do better than live a moral life.
SONSHIP LIVED
We live the life of the sons of God – because we are sons of the living manifestation of Jesus Christ. Thomas Torrance writes, “We are to think of the whole life and activity of Jesus from the cradle to the grave as constituting the vicarious human response to himself which God has freely and unconditionally provided for us… Jesus Christ is our human response to God. Thus we appear before God and are accepted by him as those who are inseparably united to Jesus Christ our great High Priest in his eternal self-presentation to the Father.” (1)
You are one with God despite your sin and your fitful resolve to be holy.
Jesus Christ is in person our vicarious response to Jesus as the Christ and He is our response to God. Furthermore, Jesus is our relationship to God and more. His relationship to God is our relationship and this relationship that is ours is of the kind that the trinity enjoy with each other.
(1) Morrison, Stephen D.. T. F. Torrance in Plain English (Plain English Series Book 2) (pp. 137-138). Beloved Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.
