ONE WITH LIFE
01/04/23 14:58
We may think that Godliness is about good and evil. Actually it's not. Jesus declared 'I come to give you life so that you have it do the full.'
All of life comes from union with God. Humanity was birthed out of God, out of the trinity to be precise. The trinity desire that we share in their joy of being – of being alive in the fullness of life. Fullness of life comes from living in the fullness of our present union with God.
To be part of His life we must say ‘yes’ to His invitation.’ Come to me and I will give you rest.’ Rest from what? Self-validation, trying to be Godly, keeping close to Jesus and rubbing oil into old wineskins. Jesus Christ is our rest from striving to be the self our hearts are longing for.
WHERE THE LIFE IS
But unless we come to God with humility and in response to His invitation to receive life to the full in, we will not understand life to the full and neither will we enter this abundant life. Our life is not found in words about God which means it is not found in a list of beliefs about Him. It’s found in ‘being’ – in being one with Him. Union with God is what Adam lost. Union with God is what we have gained in Jesus Christ.
NOTIONALITY
We may be joined to words but not be one with the Living Word in a fulsome sense. We are not in rebellion. Just in dimmed life. We can have embraced a gospel that leaves us short on the entirety of the reconciliation that is ours in Christ. Because we retain ourselves in the old covenant, in the Mosaic separation that for a time sufficed until Christ made us one with God.
But you are not in Adam’s realm. You are in Christ. His union with God is yours.
BLIND MAN’S HUFF
We are saying that if we will not enter our inheritance and leave it in the ground with the attitude, ‘You are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow’ we will not understand the meaning of life, let alone the meaning of the scriptures and the truth of our new covenant inheritance of Christ our life. Why be among those who are Christian but do not know what Jesus achieved for them?
FOGGED FAITH
Don’t live in a mindset of separation even though Jesus has given us oneness. We do not have what is ours in law/religion. Enter the wholeness that is ours when our being is one with the being of God.
IT'S NOT JUST WORDS
Speaking of knowing God and our inheritance in its fullness Torrance writes, “In a faithful interpretation of the New Testament we may not treat the words employed in it as if they were no more than transient linguistic symbols detached from any objective content in divine revelation, and as if they were not lively oracles through which God speaks to us in Person.
Rather must we treat them as words which the incarnate Word of God has deliberately assimilated to himself in communicating and interpreting himself to us in the course of his reconciling activity.
That is to say, in the words of the Bible through which the Word of God’s trinitarian self-revelation reaches us, we have to do not with some divine Word detached from his Being and Activity, but with the very Being of God speaking to us and acting upon us in an intensely personal way.
In and through them we encounter the living Word who is identical with God himself, the Word in whom we have to do with the Person and Act of God, the Son made man in Jesus Christ, and are thereby summoned to personal commitment and faith in Christ and through cognitive union with him to have knowledge of God the Father.”(1)
HOLLOW MARRIAGES
Our oneness with God and membership of the Body of Christ does not depend on our citing a scripture about belonging to the One Loaf (1 Cor 10.17). It depends on our living in Christ apart from the law. We can define ourselves as belonging to the Body of Christ when the ‘gospel’ we have embraced makes this a union of words rather than the reality that is a state of being. One might be married to a spouse according to a marriage certificate without having ever lived with that spouse and consummated the marriage. People in their thousands leave ‘marriages’ that are not in fact marriages. We can name ourselves as of the Body without any real union with the person of Christ. It’s the difference between wheat and tares.
ONE HUSBAND
‘I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him’ 2 Cor 11.12 NIV.
One with God we have a quality of being and a power of perception that is not available to the legalist and fundamentalist tied to his abstractions and word structures. Paul called such a life ‘this body of death’ from which we are delivered in Christ our life.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 42). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
All of life comes from union with God. Humanity was birthed out of God, out of the trinity to be precise. The trinity desire that we share in their joy of being – of being alive in the fullness of life. Fullness of life comes from living in the fullness of our present union with God.
To be part of His life we must say ‘yes’ to His invitation.’ Come to me and I will give you rest.’ Rest from what? Self-validation, trying to be Godly, keeping close to Jesus and rubbing oil into old wineskins. Jesus Christ is our rest from striving to be the self our hearts are longing for.
WHERE THE LIFE IS
But unless we come to God with humility and in response to His invitation to receive life to the full in, we will not understand life to the full and neither will we enter this abundant life. Our life is not found in words about God which means it is not found in a list of beliefs about Him. It’s found in ‘being’ – in being one with Him. Union with God is what Adam lost. Union with God is what we have gained in Jesus Christ.
NOTIONALITY
We may be joined to words but not be one with the Living Word in a fulsome sense. We are not in rebellion. Just in dimmed life. We can have embraced a gospel that leaves us short on the entirety of the reconciliation that is ours in Christ. Because we retain ourselves in the old covenant, in the Mosaic separation that for a time sufficed until Christ made us one with God.
But you are not in Adam’s realm. You are in Christ. His union with God is yours.
BLIND MAN’S HUFF
We are saying that if we will not enter our inheritance and leave it in the ground with the attitude, ‘You are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow’ we will not understand the meaning of life, let alone the meaning of the scriptures and the truth of our new covenant inheritance of Christ our life. Why be among those who are Christian but do not know what Jesus achieved for them?
FOGGED FAITH
Don’t live in a mindset of separation even though Jesus has given us oneness. We do not have what is ours in law/religion. Enter the wholeness that is ours when our being is one with the being of God.
IT'S NOT JUST WORDS
Speaking of knowing God and our inheritance in its fullness Torrance writes, “In a faithful interpretation of the New Testament we may not treat the words employed in it as if they were no more than transient linguistic symbols detached from any objective content in divine revelation, and as if they were not lively oracles through which God speaks to us in Person.
Rather must we treat them as words which the incarnate Word of God has deliberately assimilated to himself in communicating and interpreting himself to us in the course of his reconciling activity.
That is to say, in the words of the Bible through which the Word of God’s trinitarian self-revelation reaches us, we have to do not with some divine Word detached from his Being and Activity, but with the very Being of God speaking to us and acting upon us in an intensely personal way.
In and through them we encounter the living Word who is identical with God himself, the Word in whom we have to do with the Person and Act of God, the Son made man in Jesus Christ, and are thereby summoned to personal commitment and faith in Christ and through cognitive union with him to have knowledge of God the Father.”(1)
HOLLOW MARRIAGES
Our oneness with God and membership of the Body of Christ does not depend on our citing a scripture about belonging to the One Loaf (1 Cor 10.17). It depends on our living in Christ apart from the law. We can define ourselves as belonging to the Body of Christ when the ‘gospel’ we have embraced makes this a union of words rather than the reality that is a state of being. One might be married to a spouse according to a marriage certificate without having ever lived with that spouse and consummated the marriage. People in their thousands leave ‘marriages’ that are not in fact marriages. We can name ourselves as of the Body without any real union with the person of Christ. It’s the difference between wheat and tares.
ONE HUSBAND
‘I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him’ 2 Cor 11.12 NIV.
One with God we have a quality of being and a power of perception that is not available to the legalist and fundamentalist tied to his abstractions and word structures. Paul called such a life ‘this body of death’ from which we are delivered in Christ our life.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 42). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
