THE BASIS OF SONSHIP AND THE REAL SELF

Ted Johnson observes that “The triune God is one in being (homoousion) and that the doctrine of the Trinity holds the place of primacy in Christian theology in that, 1) it is the ground and grammar of all theological knowledge, 2) it declares that God is for us, and 3) it includes the doctrine of perichoresis, which declares that both God and humans are beings-in-relationship.”
 
A proper understanding of the trinity is enough to knock all legalisms on the head.
 
RIVERS VERSUS DROPS
 
Trinitarian primacy may come as a surprise to those raised in the primacy of the law and fundamentalist ‘letter obsession.’ It places us in BEING which is to say in the very life and fellowship of God. Not in the letter which is at best a something and at worst a nothing. We might spend an entire conference speaking out of law-based, Adamic assumptions without speaking in the spirit of sonship. This because in our minds are one with abstractions instead of one with God. Jesus spoke spirit and life. He was spirit and life because He and Father are one. This ability as a life-giver is available to all whose life is Christ as a state of being.
REDEMPTION
Our redemption is not an abstraction. The being of God, God’s trinitarian nature, the truth of trinitarian oneness yet distinctness of persons is the nature of God and the nature of us. It was our oneness with God that was temporarily disrupted by the fall and realised again through the at-one-ment and incarnation that is the model and the reality of our present union with God.
As a result of the cross, the resurrection and the incarnation we have been gifted oneness with God. This is never our achievement. It’s God’s. Our response is to step into the reality wrought by Christ. In religious mode you can strive to overcome separation from God that no longer exists. In the practising the presence mode, you can step daily into the reality of the incarnation.
PERICHORESIS
This reality that is Christ is perichoresis. This is our union with God in which we are hidden in Christ yet revealed as ourselves. It has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with the nature of God and the nature of our humanity in God. We were made to live in God and have been re-woven into His being. God is woven into our being in the person of Jesus Christ and the agency of Holy Spirit.
RED-HERRING THEOLOGY
The law as a salvation issue is a red-herring. It is irrelevant save as a ‘wrong-way- God  can utilise to expose the barrenness of our religion in the letter that kills so that we thirst for His life in Jesus. Legalism is not Christ’s Gospel of the Kingdom or genuine Christianity because it is false Christianity.
Legalism infects many Believers as a religious imagination. In some circles legalism has been crystallised into a denomination with the law as the foundation of church life. In both cases the result is a gospel that short-changes us of our inheritance in Christ. It limits the spirit of sonship, delivering a paddock of tares instead of paddocks of wheat (sons of God). Tares are not wicked Believers. Just Believers who have been robbed by a variation of the original lie. The lie is that you are not enough and you must add something yourself to be Godly.
But you are complete in Christ.
John declares, “In the beginning was the Word, what God was, the Word was, and the Word became flesh. He sees that the destiny of the Word was not the book, but human life! God finding accurate expression of himself, his image and likeness revealed in human form.” (1) Incarnated with God, God is revealed in Jesus Christ and in the form of you and us and the church not made by human hands as we live in His life.
(1) Du Toit, Francois. Loc 720. God Believes in You . Mirror Word Publishing. Kindle Edition.