WHERE THE LIFE IS
08/09/24 10:56
Since the cross you are one with God. The ploy of Satan has always been to separate us from God. This was the effect of the fall and it is the strategy of the Robber to separate us from the finished/completed undoing of separation by the enterprise of the trinity. ‘Separation’ is the chief propaganda ploy of the Enemy in the post cross age. Both Arianism and legalism are born of this lie. Arianism would have Jesus Christ separated from Father and thus not really God. Legalism leaves us contained in our self-effort.
Legalism separates us from Christ and would attempt to make our union with Christ dependent on our fulfilment of requirements. Arianism and its taint, together with legalism neutralise the cross, hollow out Christianity and denude it of Kingdom agency.
YOU ARE INCLUDED
But your point of departure as a babe progressing to maturity as a son/daughter of God is that you are already one with God. You already belong.
Spiritually crippled people are birthed from distorted versions of the Christ and from amended versions of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Once we recognise this state we do not need to stay there.
TRUE LIFE IS JESUS CHRIST
The authentic Christian Gospel is that declared by Jesus, John and Paul. The incarnation of the Son of God reveals that The Word is revealed as a person, never just in words*. This is why words on stone are stony words. They are not alive. The Living Word is Jesus Christ who is one substance with God and one substance with man. The character and nature of God, of us and the authentic way of salvation is known in knowing God. God is known in Jesus Christ as revealed by the Holy Spirit. Thus, ‘This is eternal life. To know God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent.’
ONE SUBSTANCE
“For Torrance the Nicene doctrine of ὁμοούσιον [one substance] contains key epistemological and evangelical/soteriological implications. Primarily the ὁμοούσιον implies, “God is really like Jesus” and therefore God can be known internally as he really is in himself. On account of Jesus’ and the Holy Spirit’s ὁμοούσιον [oneness] with the Father and Jesus’ ὁμοούσιον with humankind God is now knowable as he is in himself.” (1) A law lens distorts the Bible, warps the Gospel and cripples you.
DON’T BE UN-TRUTHED
You can know Jesus because He is in you and with you to testify of Himself. This does not by-pass the scriptures and learning from mature Believers and from life. It means that the trinity is in us testifying to who God is, who Christ and Holy Spirit are and who we are. Don’t suffocate the Light with obsessive parodies of truth.
AUTHENTICITY IS A PLUS
If we are to ‘know God’ and participate in His life it helps to know Him as He is and know our inheritance as it has been established – by God.
Grace is not an excuse to live from bad doctrine just because it is ours and what our parents believed. Grace is a hallway with many side doors of increased revelation and witness to the truth of what God has done for us and who we are in His life – a life that it more than an assent to doctrinal assertions but a state of being in which we are in God and God is in us. Adam’s separation has been undone and you and God are one.
* The law written in hearts should not be taken to mean the Ten Commandments. In the Old Testament is was prophesied that the Messiah would take away hearts of stone – not add stone to the heart. The law on hearts in the light of the incarnation means, the Christ incarnated in our being.
(1) Radcliff, Jason Robert. Thomas F. Torrance and the Church Fathers: A Reformed, Evangelical, and Ecumenical Reconstruction of the Patristic Tradition . Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
