SPIRITUALITY IS UNION WITH GOD IN CHRIST
10/05/24 06:27
The un-diluted Gospel can appear foreign to some people - because their gospel is a moralistic, version of the knowledge of good and evil. With others the pure Gospel of the Kingdom is not easily grasped because they have been socialised into a legalised gospel that is barely Christian.
CHIEF LAW-MONGER
We can if we have been misled and confused, think of God as the Custodian of bits and pieces of morality and belief. And because legalism – a bitty, mishmash of religious culture comes naturally to those saturated in the knowledge of good and evil.
RELIGION IS NOT SPIRITUALITY
Such religion is common but it is not spirituality. Genuine spirituality is us in union with God in Jesus Christ. The things of religion/Christianity are the package for spirit and life – but they are not spirituality itself. Secular folks usually confuse religion with spirituality, as do many Christians who need to understand that the spiritual is ours only in union with God through Jesus Christ.
SPIRITUALITY IS CHRIST EXPRESSED AS US
There is a whole person approach to living, but it is not found in situation ethics, political correctness, Christian legalism or law keeping. As Paul says that Godliness is Christ our Life while John calls it Christ come in our flesh. We are of course talking incarnation, which is why we celebrate the eucharist as the foundation of our life collectively in God and as sons/daughters of God.
UNION OF BEING IS BASIC
Thomas Torrance, one of the most prescient theologians of the modern age wrote, “Christian faith starts with the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. In that knowledge we are concerned not only with the duality of God and man in the unity of one person, but with the unity of Christ's person and his act in the one work of salvation. Jesus Christ is one person whose word is wholly involved in his act and whose act is wholly involved in his person. We cannot therefore think of his person apart from his atoning work, or of his atoning work in abstraction from his person.
“We begin with the person of Christ, but it is his person who carries out the work of salvation, and in the strict sense it is Jesus Christ himself, the mediator, who is the atonement. It is Christ atoning who concerns us here. Therefore even when we begin with his incarnation, and with his birth at Bethlehem, we are beginning right away with the atonement, for his birth, as the beginning of his incarnate person, is one end of the atoning work, with the resurrection and ascension as the other end.” (1)
Christ came in the flesh and He comes in your flesh by the Spirit. He is for you. As mediator of God and the vicarious representation of you, His salvation and presence is expressed in all who agree that He is their life.
(1) Thomas Torrance. The Incarnation. The Person and Life of Jesus Christ. 37
CHIEF LAW-MONGER
We can if we have been misled and confused, think of God as the Custodian of bits and pieces of morality and belief. And because legalism – a bitty, mishmash of religious culture comes naturally to those saturated in the knowledge of good and evil.
RELIGION IS NOT SPIRITUALITY
Such religion is common but it is not spirituality. Genuine spirituality is us in union with God in Jesus Christ. The things of religion/Christianity are the package for spirit and life – but they are not spirituality itself. Secular folks usually confuse religion with spirituality, as do many Christians who need to understand that the spiritual is ours only in union with God through Jesus Christ.
SPIRITUALITY IS CHRIST EXPRESSED AS US
There is a whole person approach to living, but it is not found in situation ethics, political correctness, Christian legalism or law keeping. As Paul says that Godliness is Christ our Life while John calls it Christ come in our flesh. We are of course talking incarnation, which is why we celebrate the eucharist as the foundation of our life collectively in God and as sons/daughters of God.
UNION OF BEING IS BASIC
Thomas Torrance, one of the most prescient theologians of the modern age wrote, “Christian faith starts with the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. In that knowledge we are concerned not only with the duality of God and man in the unity of one person, but with the unity of Christ's person and his act in the one work of salvation. Jesus Christ is one person whose word is wholly involved in his act and whose act is wholly involved in his person. We cannot therefore think of his person apart from his atoning work, or of his atoning work in abstraction from his person.
“We begin with the person of Christ, but it is his person who carries out the work of salvation, and in the strict sense it is Jesus Christ himself, the mediator, who is the atonement. It is Christ atoning who concerns us here. Therefore even when we begin with his incarnation, and with his birth at Bethlehem, we are beginning right away with the atonement, for his birth, as the beginning of his incarnate person, is one end of the atoning work, with the resurrection and ascension as the other end.” (1)
Christ came in the flesh and He comes in your flesh by the Spirit. He is for you. As mediator of God and the vicarious representation of you, His salvation and presence is expressed in all who agree that He is their life.
(1) Thomas Torrance. The Incarnation. The Person and Life of Jesus Christ. 37
