CHOOSE LIFE
05/09/24 09:33
As we have declared, our inheritance in Jesus is not religion. Neither is it only eternal life. As life to the full, His life for us is the now life of Christ come in our flesh. When Jesus said we would not be orphans but that He would be in us and with us He was not only talking about ‘association.’ He meant that we and Father would become one just as He and Father are one.
The union Jesus was speaking of is the oneness with God in which we are one with Him, yet entirely ourselves. In fact the only way to be our real self is to be hidden in Christ. To live in the spirit in this way is to live graciously towards ourselves and others and to cast off habits and thought patterns that degrade our lives. Much of this is to be growing into people of love and peace.
THE MAIN MANIFESTATION
We hear much about manifestations of the Spirit like healings, words of prophecy and visions. They have their place. However, the main manifestation of the Spirit of God was Jesus Christ. Similarly the major manifestation of the God in this age is Christ manifest as you , George and Mavis. This is to say you and us as a manifestations of the Christ who has come in our flesh. This is life in the Spirit and heaven come to earth in us.
In this mode of the One Spirit the church is the manifestation of the trinity. This is the pattern set by Jesus and it is the reality of the spirit of sonship – Christ come in our flesh.
LIMITLESS TREASURE
The bounty that is ours in the person of Jesus Christ is limitless. Thomas Torrance saw it this way. “Through the substitutionary offering of a life for a life, God’s saving grace sets us free from the bondage of sin and death.
Yet this freedom includes the destruction of sin and death itself.
Sin and death are not merely stripped of their power but are made to “disappear […] as utterly as straw from fire.” That is, sin and death are themselves put to death in Christ’s substitutionary death.” (1) This means that when we trust the Christ of God, all aspects of non-life are driven out of our being.
ILLEGITIMATE POWER
Torrance notes this by considering the Greek word luō: It is through destroying the usurped power of the law and darkness over man that the redeemer ‘leads captivity captive’ and opens up an entirely new situation in which the old order is annulled and a new order of freedom in the Spirit is ushered in.
Don’t suppose that you will be fully alive without Christ or with a false christ. Jesus has destroyed all that is un-life. No fragment or relic of non-life has any place in your person or daily living. All of death has been defeated in the cross and the resurrection. Our adventure of advance from glory to glory occurs as Christ in us drives out all forms of sin and death because we agree that He is our life and our liberator.
WORTH SELLING ALL YOU HAVE
We can actively live this life by repelling all substitutes for Him and embracing Jesus as God as our salvation and life-giver. For many of us this means rejecting the idol of religion and embracing the Christ who is in us and with us.
Paul urges us to seek our salvation with fear and trembling. He was not asking us to embrace a religion of works but to ensure that we never live a pseudo-life insulated from joy, fellowship and transformation by externalities to which we have attached ourselves - as if they are sacred. They are neither sacred or life-giving. But Christ is our fullness of life.
(1) Morrison, Stephen D.. T. F. Torrance in Plain English (Plain English Series Book 2) (pp. 171-172). Beloved Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.
