HOW NOT TO BE A SPRIG OFTHE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL
07/09/24 08:26
It’s a great advantage to worship God’s Christ and live from Christ’s gospel rather than a lesser christ and a distorted gospel. Where Arianism made Christ less than God, legalism and all law derived gospels, make a different christ and a different gospel. A law-gospel subverts the true Gospel of The Kingdom and cripples the sonship of the sons of God. It makes sons less than sons and daughters a caricature of themselves. Real Grace is not the facility to come to terms with the law. Real Grace is Christ in you and as you – Christ come in our flesh.
ONE WITH GOD
Athanasius speaks of the Word who was fully God – the Word that John cites in his prologue thus: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men’ John 1.1-4.
MAKER OF NEW CREATION
He writes, “The first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it in the beginning.” (1) He writes of the Word, the logos who was made flesh and dwelt among us; the word who created the universe. The prologue of John is declaring that the One who made the first creation is the One who has made the New Creation of which we are the daughters/sons.
EXACT REPRESENTATION
The writer of Hebrews expresses the same profound truth. ‘On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets. But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word’ Heb 1.1-3 NIV.
Then Athanasius remarks, “You may be wondering why we are discussing the origin of men when we set out to talk about the Word's becoming Man. The former subject is relevant to the latter for this reason: it was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression that called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and to appear among us. It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation.” (2)
This is God in His fullness taking human form in the Son of Man. Athanasius then goes on to assert that it is separation from God that brings about non-life (death) and sin and the associated miseries of disease and disorder in nature, individuals and society.
THIS IS WHY CHRIST OUR LIFE IS THE NEW CREATION IN PERSON.
This is in preparation for Athanasius’s key assertion that the incarnation of God in Christ and then in us – is the foundation of the new creation Kingdom of God. It is to imply that the righteousness of God and the life of God in us BECOMES US in the oneness that is now ours in Christ.
The SOURCE OF DIVINE LIFE IN HUMAN LIFE IS SPECIFIC
By the death of God in Christ the life of God becomes our life. Jesus called this kind of life spirit and life. This is what we have when we have made the incarnation our own and what we do not have when we have sought life in religion and the law.
DEATH PUT TO DEATH
“He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Saviour of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death.” (3)
ADAM/DEATH UNDON IN JESUS
The death of the spirit and the soul has been undone in the resurrection of Jesus and the infilling of our being with God the Holy Spirit .
Living from the incarnation which is the new covenant in spirit and in truth, we are alive in our spirit. This may not be noticed by all, especially by those who remain in the flesh of the law and its innate separation from God mindset. But it is known, experienced and rejoiced in by all for whom, Jesus the person is life and for whom the trinity is woven into their being.
Jesus is everything. When we know this, we know that we are alive and are alive in the Spirit because Christ has come in our flesh. He is expressed as you and as all in who have chosen to live Him as their Sue, John and Megan. Anything that is not Christ needs to be recognised for what it is: Death.
(1) St. Athanasius. On the Incarnation - Enhanced Version (pp. 1-2). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Kindle Edition.
ONE WITH GOD
Athanasius speaks of the Word who was fully God – the Word that John cites in his prologue thus: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men’ John 1.1-4.
MAKER OF NEW CREATION
He writes, “The first fact that you must grasp is this: the renewal of creation has been wrought by the Self-same Word Who made it in the beginning. There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it in the beginning.” (1) He writes of the Word, the logos who was made flesh and dwelt among us; the word who created the universe. The prologue of John is declaring that the One who made the first creation is the One who has made the New Creation of which we are the daughters/sons.
EXACT REPRESENTATION
The writer of Hebrews expresses the same profound truth. ‘On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets. But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature, upholding all things by His powerful word’ Heb 1.1-3 NIV.
Then Athanasius remarks, “You may be wondering why we are discussing the origin of men when we set out to talk about the Word's becoming Man. The former subject is relevant to the latter for this reason: it was our sorry case that caused the Word to come down, our transgression that called out His love for us, so that He made haste to help us and to appear among us. It is we who were the cause of His taking human form, and for our salvation.” (2)
This is God in His fullness taking human form in the Son of Man. Athanasius then goes on to assert that it is separation from God that brings about non-life (death) and sin and the associated miseries of disease and disorder in nature, individuals and society.
THIS IS WHY CHRIST OUR LIFE IS THE NEW CREATION IN PERSON.
This is in preparation for Athanasius’s key assertion that the incarnation of God in Christ and then in us – is the foundation of the new creation Kingdom of God. It is to imply that the righteousness of God and the life of God in us BECOMES US in the oneness that is now ours in Christ.
The SOURCE OF DIVINE LIFE IN HUMAN LIFE IS SPECIFIC
By the death of God in Christ the life of God becomes our life. Jesus called this kind of life spirit and life. This is what we have when we have made the incarnation our own and what we do not have when we have sought life in religion and the law.
DEATH PUT TO DEATH
“He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Saviour of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death.” (3)
ADAM/DEATH UNDON IN JESUS
The death of the spirit and the soul has been undone in the resurrection of Jesus and the infilling of our being with God the Holy Spirit .
Living from the incarnation which is the new covenant in spirit and in truth, we are alive in our spirit. This may not be noticed by all, especially by those who remain in the flesh of the law and its innate separation from God mindset. But it is known, experienced and rejoiced in by all for whom, Jesus the person is life and for whom the trinity is woven into their being.
Jesus is everything. When we know this, we know that we are alive and are alive in the Spirit because Christ has come in our flesh. He is expressed as you and as all in who have chosen to live Him as their Sue, John and Megan. Anything that is not Christ needs to be recognised for what it is: Death.
(1) St. Athanasius. On the Incarnation - Enhanced Version (pp. 1-2). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Kindle Edition.
(2) Ibid. St. Athanasius. P 4
(3) Op cit p. 10.
