HOW TO BE CHRISTIAN AND KINGDOM
10/11/24 07:42
Older recent issues are here.
We can if we are an off-shoot of the Christian Church warn others about ‘off-shoots’ when that is what we are ourselves. Alternatively, we may assert that we are non-sectarian when what we are is a Christian sect. If we belong to the Body of Christ we will be part of the Christian tradition being in the same garden – and not be a pot plant with our own brand and our own ‘other gospel.’ Jesus has given us Himself, not an ideology that we must expend ourselves defending in every church service. We are joined to God and His infinite life in Jesus who is our life, being for us and being expressed as us.
GOD IN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
“The specifically Christian doctrine of God is thus inescapably and essentially Christocentric, for it pivots upon God’s self-revelation and self-communication in the incarnation, in an objective manifestation, an imprint of the divine Hypostasis, which is identical with the very Being (αὐτὸ τὸ ὄν) of God himself.” Thus Christ and not the law is the foundation of Kingdom Life. Because our inheritance is not a version of the knowledge of good and evil empowered by Christ. Our inheritance is inclusion in God’s Communion in Jesus Christ.
THE REVELATION IS CHRIST
“This does not mean that all our knowledge of God can be reduced to Christology, but that, as there is only one Mediator between God and man, who is himself both God and Man, and only one revelation of God in which he himself is its actual content, all authentic knowledge of God is derived and understood in accordance with the incarnate reality of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ, and is formulated in doctrinal coherence with Christology.
IRRELEVANCE OF EXTERNALITIES
This is to say, doctrinal statements about God are possible and true only when Christologically grounded, for only in Jesus Christ do we really have to do with an objective personal self-revelation of God which bridges the distance between God and us and which is identical with the very Being of God himself. We cannot think and speak of God truly apart from his Word and his Act in the incarnation, and that means, apart from Jesus Christ.” (1)
CHRIST IS ALL AND IN ALL
When Paul writes of ‘Christ who is our life’, he means that Jesus is our justification and sanctification in His person. We can write this as Jesus being for us and expressed as us by the Spirit, which is the real meaning of life in the Spirit – being Christ come in our flesh.
Understand that Holy Spirit and the gifts are advantageous, only when that in which they are rooted is this gospel of the Kingdom and not some off-shoot ideology of the kind Paul defined as ‘another gospel’.
ENLIGHTENED IMAGINATION
C S Lewis wrote, “Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” This means that when we see with the eyes of Jesus personally, we will participate in an imagination that can join dots that are invisible to rationalism, materialism and scientism. You will apprehend a realm of meaning/reality that is not magic but the reality that is Christ behind the realm of appearances. This is us learning how to see with the eyes of Christ – a variety of seeing that enables us to perceive truth and cast aside dots that have no connection to each other so as to off-load Christian populist myths and gospels that are garbage in terms of Paul’s naming of dung gospels.
CHRIST IN YOU
Christ first came in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth. Since the atonement and Pentecost He comes in you to be manifest to you and expressed as you and as the church he builds without human hands -the incarnated body of Christ.
LIGHT/LIFE IN US
.. “We come to know the Son of God from below. When we start from below we are confronted with Jesus Christ, the God-man. We allow him to speak and act and “reveal” his essential being to us. As the New Testament will witness, Jesus is none other than God himself; God in the flesh and that will be the doxological culmination of any orthodox Christology.” (2) Here is the Christ who reveals Himself to us and by the Spirit is expressed as us, as the eucharist denotes so that we live by the Spirit in what Paul calls ‘Christ who is our life.
CHRIST YOUR LIFE
The mystery of the incarnation for you and I is revealed as Christ come in our flesh. This is our participation in the divine nature – a divine reality in which Christ is expressed as us – not our hectic striving to copy Jesus but our resting in Him as a state of being in which we agree with Jesus that He has included us in His life and woven Himself into our being. The result is that Bill and Jane become expressions of the Christ incarnated in their being. The eucharist lived.
Recently I concluded my viewing of the Bones TV series in which a team of forensic scientists and an FBI agent working together in a laboratory and in the field solve crimes by sheer capability and intelligence.
A SHADOW OF THE REAL
This series is so well acted that the scientists in character in the lab appear as real scientists. The actors in a manner of speaking are those scientists in verisimilitude. Of course, the actors are not those scientist but their art makes them accurate representations of real laboratory personnel.
By living the eucharist the Christ who is our life is expressed as true Godliness and the real us. This is the incarnation lived.
The ‘Bones actors’ can be seen, so to speak, with a degree of imagination, as a parable of our life in the Spirit and of the Christ incarnated in us to be expressed as you and I. The art of these skilled actors is to be those laboratory characters. They are them. But in our Kingdom life we are not copying Christ – because we can’t. Incarnated with Christ we are being sons/daughters in whom Christ is expressed. The cool thing is that in Christ our life the self is not annulled. It is revealed and established according to who we were always meant to be as sons/daughters of God.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 17). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
(2) Habets, Myk. The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 129) (p. 51). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
We can if we are an off-shoot of the Christian Church warn others about ‘off-shoots’ when that is what we are ourselves. Alternatively, we may assert that we are non-sectarian when what we are is a Christian sect. If we belong to the Body of Christ we will be part of the Christian tradition being in the same garden – and not be a pot plant with our own brand and our own ‘other gospel.’ Jesus has given us Himself, not an ideology that we must expend ourselves defending in every church service. We are joined to God and His infinite life in Jesus who is our life, being for us and being expressed as us.
GOD IN CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
“The specifically Christian doctrine of God is thus inescapably and essentially Christocentric, for it pivots upon God’s self-revelation and self-communication in the incarnation, in an objective manifestation, an imprint of the divine Hypostasis, which is identical with the very Being (αὐτὸ τὸ ὄν) of God himself.” Thus Christ and not the law is the foundation of Kingdom Life. Because our inheritance is not a version of the knowledge of good and evil empowered by Christ. Our inheritance is inclusion in God’s Communion in Jesus Christ.
THE REVELATION IS CHRIST
“This does not mean that all our knowledge of God can be reduced to Christology, but that, as there is only one Mediator between God and man, who is himself both God and Man, and only one revelation of God in which he himself is its actual content, all authentic knowledge of God is derived and understood in accordance with the incarnate reality of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ, and is formulated in doctrinal coherence with Christology.
IRRELEVANCE OF EXTERNALITIES
This is to say, doctrinal statements about God are possible and true only when Christologically grounded, for only in Jesus Christ do we really have to do with an objective personal self-revelation of God which bridges the distance between God and us and which is identical with the very Being of God himself. We cannot think and speak of God truly apart from his Word and his Act in the incarnation, and that means, apart from Jesus Christ.” (1)
CHRIST IS ALL AND IN ALL
When Paul writes of ‘Christ who is our life’, he means that Jesus is our justification and sanctification in His person. We can write this as Jesus being for us and expressed as us by the Spirit, which is the real meaning of life in the Spirit – being Christ come in our flesh.
Understand that Holy Spirit and the gifts are advantageous, only when that in which they are rooted is this gospel of the Kingdom and not some off-shoot ideology of the kind Paul defined as ‘another gospel’.
ENLIGHTENED IMAGINATION
C S Lewis wrote, “Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” This means that when we see with the eyes of Jesus personally, we will participate in an imagination that can join dots that are invisible to rationalism, materialism and scientism. You will apprehend a realm of meaning/reality that is not magic but the reality that is Christ behind the realm of appearances. This is us learning how to see with the eyes of Christ – a variety of seeing that enables us to perceive truth and cast aside dots that have no connection to each other so as to off-load Christian populist myths and gospels that are garbage in terms of Paul’s naming of dung gospels.
CHRIST IN YOU
Christ first came in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth. Since the atonement and Pentecost He comes in you to be manifest to you and expressed as you and as the church he builds without human hands -the incarnated body of Christ.
LIGHT/LIFE IN US
.. “We come to know the Son of God from below. When we start from below we are confronted with Jesus Christ, the God-man. We allow him to speak and act and “reveal” his essential being to us. As the New Testament will witness, Jesus is none other than God himself; God in the flesh and that will be the doxological culmination of any orthodox Christology.” (2) Here is the Christ who reveals Himself to us and by the Spirit is expressed as us, as the eucharist denotes so that we live by the Spirit in what Paul calls ‘Christ who is our life.
CHRIST YOUR LIFE
The mystery of the incarnation for you and I is revealed as Christ come in our flesh. This is our participation in the divine nature – a divine reality in which Christ is expressed as us – not our hectic striving to copy Jesus but our resting in Him as a state of being in which we agree with Jesus that He has included us in His life and woven Himself into our being. The result is that Bill and Jane become expressions of the Christ incarnated in their being. The eucharist lived.
Recently I concluded my viewing of the Bones TV series in which a team of forensic scientists and an FBI agent working together in a laboratory and in the field solve crimes by sheer capability and intelligence.
A SHADOW OF THE REAL
This series is so well acted that the scientists in character in the lab appear as real scientists. The actors in a manner of speaking are those scientists in verisimilitude. Of course, the actors are not those scientist but their art makes them accurate representations of real laboratory personnel.
By living the eucharist the Christ who is our life is expressed as true Godliness and the real us. This is the incarnation lived.
The ‘Bones actors’ can be seen, so to speak, with a degree of imagination, as a parable of our life in the Spirit and of the Christ incarnated in us to be expressed as you and I. The art of these skilled actors is to be those laboratory characters. They are them. But in our Kingdom life we are not copying Christ – because we can’t. Incarnated with Christ we are being sons/daughters in whom Christ is expressed. The cool thing is that in Christ our life the self is not annulled. It is revealed and established according to who we were always meant to be as sons/daughters of God.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 17). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
(2) Habets, Myk. The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 129) (p. 51). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
