THE ONE FOUNDATION
14/09/23 16:02
Is our foundation Christ or some substitute foundation that has been cunningly laid?
“No one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work’ Cor 3. 12-13 NIV.
WHY IS IT THAT
SINCERE BELIEVERS CAN BE
BLIND TO THE REAL GOSPEL OF CHRIST THEIR LIFE?
Some have never bothered to examine the validity of their faith. Others are live in the externalities of life. Others are part of the vested interests that find an advantage for the self in partial gospels and distorted teaching.
THE LENS
The lens of Knowing God is God Himself. God revealed some of Himself in the old testament and revealed Himself clearly in the person of Jesus Christ. One cannot know Christ as He is by observation. Christ is revealed to us by oneness with His person. He is seen as He is by His Spirit in us informing our hearts and minds as to the reality of Himself and the triune God. We cannot know God unless we are born from religion into oneness with Christ.
‘Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” John 3.3 NIV. We will not know the Christ, ourselves or the Kingdom as inmates of the law.
Douglas Campbell observers that, bent theologies based on extraneous foundations “Stand guard as authentic theologies barring the way to Jesus himself.”
THE LIVING WAY
Jesus told us the way to life. He said eternal life is knowing God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent. Jesus told us that to see Him is to see Our Father. Seeing God properly, is a function of oneness with God – which is ours not due to saintliness and piety - but because God has made us one with God in the Christ of God. WE HAVE AT-ONE-MENT.
CROOKED WAY
The knowledge of good and evil. – Adam’s lens – cannot reveal God as God is. This is not surprising since Satan’s insinuation that both Father and ourselves are less than it appears was a lie. It still is.
CONDEMNATION CULTURE
Consequently the law ( a subsection of the knowledge of good and evil) cannot reveal the true nature of the Christ of God since the law is a function of separation from God. The result of the law is condemnation. But there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus who has joined us to God in His own body both on Calvary and in the Spirit. Since the atonement of the cross, we are one with Christ and we participate with Him in His oneness with God as a member of the trinity. We are not Gods, but we are sons/daughters of very high purpose who fellowship with the trinity in Jesus’ fellowship with the being of God.
‘Knowing God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent’ is a function of our oneness with God, which is why this foundation must be possessed and not ignored or sought for in religion or self-effort. We have direct communion with Christ via the incarnation. Living in this oneness is wise and obedient holiness.
HE IS NOT AN ABSTRACTION
It’s a mistake to seek to know God through categories of the knowledge of good and evil and through the law. God must be known through Himself. He has graciously provided a living way to do this in Jesus Christ. “Torrance pointed out that if, in any field of knowledge, an enquirer concentrates solely on phenomena and interprets phenomena solely from within his or her existing mind-set, then he or she may well not appreciate .. the nature and logic of a thing which has made the phenomenon what it is. Thus, although observation is crucial, it is only when the enquirer grasps (even tentatively) the rationality which lies invisibly within phenomena, that the enquirer can begin to truly observe such phenomena aright.” (1) Spiritual discernment begins with a lived union with God in Jesus Christ.
IT’S EITHER ONENESS WITH CHRIST OR ONENESS WITH YOU
Any law-based gospel diverts us from Christ our life to the non-life of the knowledge of good and evil. This is to say that we cannot understand the Kingdom of God that is our inheritance, unless we are born again from religion and Adam’s mode of thought into oneness with God in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus told Nicodemus that we cannot see the Kingdom as it is unless we are born again – which is why many sincere Believers do not see it and are offended at those who live in the freedom that people possess who live Christ their life instead of Adam their life.
(1) T.F. Torrance in Recollection and Reappraisal, P 64.
