YOU CAN HAVE KINGDOM AGENCY

We can be place-holders in the institutions of man or agents of Christ’s spirit and life. We can be disciples of Christ and loyal to His Gospel or we can be disciples of ourselves, our brand and our fanciful Christian perspective.

NOT MADE-UP
We do not establish the reality of our life in God by introspection, reason, reliance on anthropology or extra biblical revelation. There is no authoritative doctrine that is an addition to the scriptures, the church fathers and reformers that can be thought of as the foundation of the Christian Faith.

“The incarnation .. is the place within history where we may know God in himself because, if our thinking begins with Jesus Christ as the revelation of God the Son in his unique relation with the Father and the Spirit, then we are in fact thinking from a centre in God and not from a centre in ourselves. This can only happen, Torrance believes, if we indwell the scriptures and hear the Word of God speak to us through their witness.”(1)

RIGHTLY INTERPRETING THE WORD
‘Indwelling the scriptures’ is itself a spiritual discipline. Unwrapping and teaching this correct theology is just as much a spiritual gift/manifestation as healing an eye or a crippled leg. Indeed, it results in the healing of blind spiritual eyes and gives our legs a straight path on which to walk so that the gifts are rooted in the life and light of Christ and not in some partisan gospel that cripples people in their spirit.

DON’T LIVE IN DENIAL
We can, if we are obtuse, hide in the bubble of received teaching that we regard as our own, often called ‘our perspective’ – which is a crooked view that vitiates ‘this gospel of the Kingdom’ and ensures that any revival of the Holy Spirit that begins with a bang inevitable ends up in a whimper and people are left wondering ‘what was that?’

ROOTED IN LIGHT
We have the benefit of being rooted in Christ and joined to the rock from which we were hewn in Jesus. “As Irenaeus taught, it is only with the incarnation of the only begotten Son, who declares the Father and interprets his Word, that the very God who made himself known in a seminal way through the Old Testament prophets foretelling the advent of his Son, is now made known to us in the saving economy of the New Testament revelation in this trinitarian way. In Jesus Christ the Word of God made flesh, God the Father has taken the initiative, actively revealing himself to us through himself as the one and only Lord God who speaks to us from the free ground of his own self-existent and self-sufficient being.” This is the Soil from which trees of life grow and in which weeds get short shift and die out in the face of spirit, life and truth. This is the culture in which we are agents of Christ and His Kingdom rather than place-holders in fantasy religion.

(1)Introduction by Paul D Molar, Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) . Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
(2)Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (pp. 13-14). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.