KINGDOM TRUTH IS OUR LIFE
20/11/24 07:25
A cunningly devised fable appears believable because it is close to the truth yet not the whole truth and may seem legitimate because it accords with our human tendency to seek self-recommendation to God. Since the fall there has been an embedded predilection to add something to what already is, to be considered Godly (be as gods).
SELF-DEGRADATION
This degrading leaning continues to this day with the simplicity of Christ as our life being added to or detracted from under the guise of some new revelation or expressed as ‘another gospel’ of the kind Paul warned the church about. Most of these gospels, probably all are expression of the knowledge of good and evil with Jesus added. All of them offer some version of conditional grace and self-made grace in the form of denominational icons and distinguishing beliefs that supposedly recommend community members to God.
THREAT OF TRUTH
In some sects these form the elephant in the room – for example to acknowledge the foundational importance of the new covenant would eliminate entirely the legitimacy of some sects, particularly those that whose core is the law and where legalisms are seen as participation in the divine nature. This is no small aberration, given that Jesus is our participation in the divine nature.
ONE GOSPEL
Thomas Torrence writes, “It should now be clear that the self-revelation of God is necessarily exclusive both because it is only through God that God makes himself known and because he makes himself known as the one and only Lord God in the utterly singular event of the incarnation.
“Revelation is not the revealing of something about God, but God revealing himself out of himself in such a way that he who reveals and he who is revealed are one and the same. That is to say, God is at once the Subject and the Object of revelation, and never the Object without also being the Subject. This interlocking of the Being and the Act of God in his revelation excludes the possibility of there being any other revelation, just as the very nature of God excludes the possibility of there being any other God beside himself.” (1)
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD
This unified understanding of God and the self, is ours in the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. Paul warns against variations and John implies a curse on any who add to the Gospel that is never to of any private, aka denominational interpretation.
PAUL
Paul was correct in advocating Christ who is our life, since Jesus is our justification and transformation, meaning that Christ has earned us. We have not earned Him and do not earn Him, which would contain us in a subtle and un-holy narcissism. We pass from non-being to the being of ourselves as sons/daughters in the person or Jesus in whom we have sonship vicariously and in actuality as we grow into His likeness because of His Spirit expressed in 0ur persons.
SONS NOT WORKERS
In Jesus we are set free from the chains of the ‘worker’ and his “Anxious, introspective self-examination in search of the fruits of [his] sanctification. Federal Calvinism comes to grief on the same issue that undoes Puritanism: the search for assurance turns inward. The doctrine of limited atonement and the consequent introspective piety left the residue of an intractable pastoral problem that directed attention away from confidence in what Christ has done.” (2) Thus we may be burdened with the seemingly harmless but subtly pernicious piety of ‘keeping close to Jesus,’ as if this is any more possible than the Jewish keeping of the law.
TEPID
When “Christian identity tends to be defined in terms of “Yes, I made a decision for Christ” or “I follow the teachings of Jesus” or “I attend church regularly.” This emphasis upon our own, independent religious activity leads to “frustration, failure and a lack of the real joy of the Lord.” “Because of this focus on ourselves,” David W. Torrance regrets, “there is frequently in the Christian life a lack of assurance of salvation so that we are not really set free to serve!” (3) Not only not really set free to serve, but serving others because it’s about our need to earn Christ or ‘pay back Christ’ and validate the self in some way, all of which leeches our ministry of the spirit and life that is ours when we are ling Christ our life.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 22). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
(2) Radcliff, Alexandra S.. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T. F. and J. B. Torrance (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 222) (pp. 2-3). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
(3) Ibid. (p. 3).
SELF-DEGRADATION
This degrading leaning continues to this day with the simplicity of Christ as our life being added to or detracted from under the guise of some new revelation or expressed as ‘another gospel’ of the kind Paul warned the church about. Most of these gospels, probably all are expression of the knowledge of good and evil with Jesus added. All of them offer some version of conditional grace and self-made grace in the form of denominational icons and distinguishing beliefs that supposedly recommend community members to God.
THREAT OF TRUTH
In some sects these form the elephant in the room – for example to acknowledge the foundational importance of the new covenant would eliminate entirely the legitimacy of some sects, particularly those that whose core is the law and where legalisms are seen as participation in the divine nature. This is no small aberration, given that Jesus is our participation in the divine nature.
ONE GOSPEL
Thomas Torrence writes, “It should now be clear that the self-revelation of God is necessarily exclusive both because it is only through God that God makes himself known and because he makes himself known as the one and only Lord God in the utterly singular event of the incarnation.
“Revelation is not the revealing of something about God, but God revealing himself out of himself in such a way that he who reveals and he who is revealed are one and the same. That is to say, God is at once the Subject and the Object of revelation, and never the Object without also being the Subject. This interlocking of the Being and the Act of God in his revelation excludes the possibility of there being any other revelation, just as the very nature of God excludes the possibility of there being any other God beside himself.” (1)
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD
This unified understanding of God and the self, is ours in the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. Paul warns against variations and John implies a curse on any who add to the Gospel that is never to of any private, aka denominational interpretation.
PAUL
Paul was correct in advocating Christ who is our life, since Jesus is our justification and transformation, meaning that Christ has earned us. We have not earned Him and do not earn Him, which would contain us in a subtle and un-holy narcissism. We pass from non-being to the being of ourselves as sons/daughters in the person or Jesus in whom we have sonship vicariously and in actuality as we grow into His likeness because of His Spirit expressed in 0ur persons.
SONS NOT WORKERS
In Jesus we are set free from the chains of the ‘worker’ and his “Anxious, introspective self-examination in search of the fruits of [his] sanctification. Federal Calvinism comes to grief on the same issue that undoes Puritanism: the search for assurance turns inward. The doctrine of limited atonement and the consequent introspective piety left the residue of an intractable pastoral problem that directed attention away from confidence in what Christ has done.” (2) Thus we may be burdened with the seemingly harmless but subtly pernicious piety of ‘keeping close to Jesus,’ as if this is any more possible than the Jewish keeping of the law.
TEPID
When “Christian identity tends to be defined in terms of “Yes, I made a decision for Christ” or “I follow the teachings of Jesus” or “I attend church regularly.” This emphasis upon our own, independent religious activity leads to “frustration, failure and a lack of the real joy of the Lord.” “Because of this focus on ourselves,” David W. Torrance regrets, “there is frequently in the Christian life a lack of assurance of salvation so that we are not really set free to serve!” (3) Not only not really set free to serve, but serving others because it’s about our need to earn Christ or ‘pay back Christ’ and validate the self in some way, all of which leeches our ministry of the spirit and life that is ours when we are ling Christ our life.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 22). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
(2) Radcliff, Alexandra S.. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T. F. and J. B. Torrance (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 222) (pp. 2-3). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
(3) Ibid. (p. 3).
