RADICAL CHRIST-LIFE
19/01/25 07:27
Christian Kettler writes, "As common as it has been to consider Christ's death to be vicarious, carried out in our place and for us, what if we were to consider that the entirety of his humanity was lived vicariously for us and in our place?"
IT’S RADICAL
The good news is that it is. Radical and basic grace is that Christ is both for us and manifests as us – as the sons of God. This is the deeper meaning of the Body of Christ. You are an expression of Christ. Not a legalised construct.
A partial Christian life is the Believer striving to be a Godly person with Jesus’ help. The real deal is Christ ‘being you’ in the Spirit. This is incarnation. This is New Testament. This is Christ come in our flesh.
Jesus Christ represents you and is the ‘you’ you are becoming.
VICARIOUS
The vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ means that He is the stand-in for all humanity in all things in our relationship to God. This is radical grace. It’s so radical that it can come as an affront to those who in ways subtle and overt have sought to earn their way to acceptance with God. We may be repelled by the moneychangers in the temple but many of us are our own moneychangers. Seeking by means of a ‘contract’ with God, to purchase our way to union with God. He is the way and He has purchased in Himself our forgiveness and union with God.
ESTABLISHED BELONGING
The fact is that union with God belongs to all. But we must choose Him to be part of this belonging. This choice may not always be overt. Some respond to God because they are good people. His Spirit in them seeks the good even if they do not know His Name or have no understanding of His theology. When they go to be with Jesus these people will recognise Him from various encounters from their life. Yet we explain His theology here so that all may live in the abundance of His life rather than in some scarcity version of it.
COME!
God does not make people belong. His life and mission is an invitation: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ Matt 11.28 KJV. For many the burden is just to survive.
For people like us in Western Countries, the burden is to construct an adequate self. Jesus Christ is our rest for human restlessness. Nothing else suffices. Thankfully this self is available to us in Christ when He is our life. In Christ we are forgiven for our misdeeds and declared not guilty. But we are graced with more than a label. We are drawn into a state of being. This is Christ our life and us being made part of the Family of the Trinity. This is who sons and daughters of God are.
GLASS OVERFLOWING
In our house we live to encourage people into the life of Jesus Christ – all of Him and all of His life. We give no licence to half gospels and un-gospels. We live to assist the Lord in drawing people into all of His life and all of their inheritance. Not just bits of it. Why live in a glass have full when in His life, we can have a glass overflowing with spirit and life?
If you and your friends are stuck on doing specific things as godliness you have not understood your inheritance. You have missed the extravagant bounty of the cross. The miser may have an excellent bank balance. But the miser is always poor, always a peasant and a mendicant. This is the half-life of living the old covenant in the new covenant age. You are living in Adam when Christ is here to be you. Live the riches of union with God that Jesus has won for you.
UNLOCK TRUTH
“David Torrance notes that a knowledge of the vicarious humanity of Jesus, "is crucial to our understanding of Christ and of Scripture" (p.1). He shows that the eternal Son of God, through whom all things were created and have their being, became human in the person of Jesus Christ. In his humanity (while remaining divine), Jesus is the representative and substitute for all humanity. Thus, what happened (and continues to happen) to Jesus, applies to us all.”
NOT IN ADAM BUT IN CHRIST
In Christ’s belonging, you get more than Adam with a new pair of shoes. And more than sins forgiven. You get a new you with a living way of advancing into the infinite potential that is you as a son/daughter of God. This new and living way is what Paul called, Christ our life and what John described as Christ come in our flesh. We are talking the effect of the vicarious humanity of Jesus: Incarnation. This is the trinity woven into our being and manifest as Bob, Jill and Leo.
Foolish virgins choose non-life because they want to. The wise virgins choose infinite life because they already have it.