NO LIFE OUTSIDE OF CHRIST. DIMINISHED LIFE IN A FALSE CHRIST

The theology of Jesus and the apostles binds us to Jesus and liberates us to be sons and daughters of God. The foundational sin is separation from God. Similar sins are the dilution of Christ and living from the construct of a false christ.
 
The living way of life and righteousness is the union with God that the Christ of God has made ours. A Christ of the law is not the Christ of God. The Christ of the trinity is the Christ who includes us in the Communion that is God.
 
THEOLOGIES OF THE FALL
 
There are theologies that are intrinsically legalistic. They are so because they are an explicit product of separation from God and the epistemology of separation. This is a mental schema that flows from the dichotomies of the knowledge of good and evil. Some of these mind-frames are the product of an overt dualism that has historical links to beliefs like Zoroastrianism with its cosmic conflict of order versus chaos.* In other communities they are simply the product of legalism.
 
SPLIT LIFE
 
A most subtle and debilitating effect of dualism on Christianity is the dividing of reality into sacred and secular – so that sacredness is compartmentalised in religiosity /churchism. This has the effect of  diluting the atonement and incarnation to white-ant the effect of the new creation in the World of Everyday.
 
‘And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth’ Eph 1.10 NLT.
 
COMMUNITY OF ONENESS WITH GOD
 
Jesus Christ as Lord of Creation and of Recreation draws all things into Himself so that the oneness of humanity in Christ is reflected in the unity in diversity in the advance of new creation life. We call this advance the Kingdom of God.
 
Torrance purveys a theology of belonging and inclusion that is appropriate to the undoing of the separation that Adam unleashed by the fall. “Torrance was aware that, in theology, concepts were frequently treated as isolated entities. Over against this, he argued that any truly foundational concept can only be understood aright within its inter-relationships. Here he built on the notion of the Trinity as the ground and grammar of all theology. It is the inter-relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit which provides the conceptual foundation for understanding all of the acts of God.”(1)
 
THE ISSUE OF LIFE
 
Thus it is not man’s keeping of the law that is the core issue of righteousness and salvation but man’s agreement with Christ that humans have been drawn into the Communion that is God as a result of the atonement and incarnation  - so that we live in the trinity and the trinity lives in us. The truth is that in Christ we have life and without Him we don’t.
 
*Like the Grand Dualism of the Great Controversy between Christ and Satan.
 
(1) Ritchie, Bruce. T. F. Torrance in Recollection and Reappraisal (p. 93). Pickwick Publications. Kindle Edition.