TRUTH IS LIFE. MADE-UP BELIEFS ARE DECAY
09/11/24 14:42
If you have been raised in fundamentalism, it is possible that God to you is more of an abstraction than a person and that your faith is more a belief system than communion of oneness and being in God. There is a legalistic way of thinking that is the product of a law mentality – an epistemology in which reality becomes a construct of the letter when in fact reality is the expression of Christ. The importance of personhood is seen in the centrality of the Trinity as the Source of love/life and personhood. Why live an ideology when you can live Christ?
OF BEING
Reality emanates from the trinity and enters you by the Spirit of Christ. You become who you really are in a Godly way, incarnated with Christ your life. When living from a sin-management mentality we can be consumed by what we are not rather than what we are – sons/daughters of God in union with Christ. Paul’s ‘Christ who is our life’ nails the difference between religion and you as an expression of the life of Christ.
‘Letter style religion’ is religious. But it’s not spiritual and actually makes dead trees of people who could have been living trees. ‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.2 Cor 3.6 NIV. We must live the new covenant – our inclusion in God in Christ to be Life-Givers.
If still attached to the law we are not in the Spirit.
Fundamentalism is a version of legalism. It can be a precise and agile expression of the knowledge of good and evil while devoid of spirit and life. Dormant because the letter is not alive, it desensitises, dulls the mind and kills the spirit.
GIVE IT A HUMAN FACE
We can make fundamentalism appear better than it is, and many do as they mature – by intellectualising it. But it remains what it is: The letter that kills. What makes us alive? The state of being that is not words but life: Oneness with Christ which is Christ manifest by the Spirit as you and us..
We get to be one with Christ not by meeting some criteria or doing something but by agreeing that Christ has drawn us into His life. ‘The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you--they are full of the Spirit and life’ John 6.63 NIV.
LETTER RELIGION
Fundamentalism is attractive to those who need to reduce the life of Christ to a formula and who comfort themselves with a religious contract. It’s handy when we need to win religious debates and convince ourselves that the beliefs and the entitlements we think are ours are supported by scripture. I knew a brilliant man, attached to the law, who could win any debate. But although he won, he did not enter the fullness of life that the Lord had given him.
NOT OF THE LETTER
‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ 2 Cor 3.6 NIV.
Letter people are not usually evil. They are most sincere. Just never alive.
As certain about words as we may be, the letter always kills. Either it dulls the spirit and stupefies the soul. Or it sucks out the humanity of the person, leaving a husk of religion that is either a trivial pursuit or a persecution of others. The law is innately judgmental. Working with such Christians is misery. The only word that is life-giving is Christ the Living Word who is Life itself. We are alive when He is with us and in us.
GOD IS LOVE
Love can never be expressed as the law. Love is too personal for that. Love is the property of persons and ‘being.’ Humans in their essence are never robotic and the most human of them do not run from real life. Even the kind and gracious atheist, whether he knows it or not is not the product of a set of rules. Unbeknownst to himself he is the expression of the Christ who he has not yet acknowledged.
If religion rather than Christ is our life can never know ourselves in any depth or relate deeply to others,
CHRIST YOUR LIFE
There is no law that is applicable in the post cross age. There is an order that is love personified in the incarnation of the trinity with us and in us. There was no law and is no law that is a priori and superordinate to God. The relationship that is God is called by Paul, The law of the spirit of life which is you and all of us incorporated into the fellowship that is God.
GOD MANIFEST AS YOU
Christ your life is the law of the spirit of life. It’s a communion of love, spirit and life that makes you alive in the persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit into whom you are woven. The life that God has drawn us into is the life that God is as God. We are not only drawn into fellowship. We are drawn into God-self.
RING OF DEATH
We need not accept this. We can argue that it’s too nebulous. We can deny Christ come in the flesh and stick with the law – thus siding with Satan once again that God is holding something back and we are not enough so we must take control ourselves and continue a version of the fall for another couple of centuries. So we add something to Christ, cling to a piece of law, make an identity of our own gospel brand and purvey a form of death as though it is life. This is the makings of an orc. Tolkien depicted this folly as the refusal to throw the ring into the fires of Mt Doom.
GOD MANIFEST IN YOU
Thomas Torrance writes, “The Love that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit eternally are, has taken incarnate form in the Lord Jesus Christ for us and our salvation.
“The self-giving and self-sacrificial Love manifested in him flows from the self-giving and self-sacrificial Love of God and are that self-giving and sacrificial Love in redemptive action on our behalf in the world. To the fellowship of love which God establishes with us through the incarnation of his beloved Son in space and time there corresponds an eternal Fellowship of Love within God himself.
WHY LAW-MONGERING IS NOT IT
“The Freedom in which God enters into communion with us is grounded in and flows from the Freedom of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in their love for one another. The Communion which God eternally is in the mutual indwelling of the three Divine Persons within the relations of his one Being, he is toward us and with us and for us in his saving presence and loving activity in history. This is what the doctrine of the Holy Trinity supremely means, that God himself is Love.” (1) Your inclusion in God has nothing to do with law/letter that kills and everything to do that in Christ, you are included and made one with God in the kind of relationship that the trinity have with themselves.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 162). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
OF BEING
Reality emanates from the trinity and enters you by the Spirit of Christ. You become who you really are in a Godly way, incarnated with Christ your life. When living from a sin-management mentality we can be consumed by what we are not rather than what we are – sons/daughters of God in union with Christ. Paul’s ‘Christ who is our life’ nails the difference between religion and you as an expression of the life of Christ.
‘Letter style religion’ is religious. But it’s not spiritual and actually makes dead trees of people who could have been living trees. ‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.2 Cor 3.6 NIV. We must live the new covenant – our inclusion in God in Christ to be Life-Givers.
If still attached to the law we are not in the Spirit.
Fundamentalism is a version of legalism. It can be a precise and agile expression of the knowledge of good and evil while devoid of spirit and life. Dormant because the letter is not alive, it desensitises, dulls the mind and kills the spirit.
GIVE IT A HUMAN FACE
We can make fundamentalism appear better than it is, and many do as they mature – by intellectualising it. But it remains what it is: The letter that kills. What makes us alive? The state of being that is not words but life: Oneness with Christ which is Christ manifest by the Spirit as you and us..
We get to be one with Christ not by meeting some criteria or doing something but by agreeing that Christ has drawn us into His life. ‘The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you--they are full of the Spirit and life’ John 6.63 NIV.
LETTER RELIGION
Fundamentalism is attractive to those who need to reduce the life of Christ to a formula and who comfort themselves with a religious contract. It’s handy when we need to win religious debates and convince ourselves that the beliefs and the entitlements we think are ours are supported by scripture. I knew a brilliant man, attached to the law, who could win any debate. But although he won, he did not enter the fullness of life that the Lord had given him.
NOT OF THE LETTER
‘He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ 2 Cor 3.6 NIV.
Letter people are not usually evil. They are most sincere. Just never alive.
As certain about words as we may be, the letter always kills. Either it dulls the spirit and stupefies the soul. Or it sucks out the humanity of the person, leaving a husk of religion that is either a trivial pursuit or a persecution of others. The law is innately judgmental. Working with such Christians is misery. The only word that is life-giving is Christ the Living Word who is Life itself. We are alive when He is with us and in us.
GOD IS LOVE
Love can never be expressed as the law. Love is too personal for that. Love is the property of persons and ‘being.’ Humans in their essence are never robotic and the most human of them do not run from real life. Even the kind and gracious atheist, whether he knows it or not is not the product of a set of rules. Unbeknownst to himself he is the expression of the Christ who he has not yet acknowledged.
If religion rather than Christ is our life can never know ourselves in any depth or relate deeply to others,
CHRIST YOUR LIFE
There is no law that is applicable in the post cross age. There is an order that is love personified in the incarnation of the trinity with us and in us. There was no law and is no law that is a priori and superordinate to God. The relationship that is God is called by Paul, The law of the spirit of life which is you and all of us incorporated into the fellowship that is God.
GOD MANIFEST AS YOU
Christ your life is the law of the spirit of life. It’s a communion of love, spirit and life that makes you alive in the persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit into whom you are woven. The life that God has drawn us into is the life that God is as God. We are not only drawn into fellowship. We are drawn into God-self.
RING OF DEATH
We need not accept this. We can argue that it’s too nebulous. We can deny Christ come in the flesh and stick with the law – thus siding with Satan once again that God is holding something back and we are not enough so we must take control ourselves and continue a version of the fall for another couple of centuries. So we add something to Christ, cling to a piece of law, make an identity of our own gospel brand and purvey a form of death as though it is life. This is the makings of an orc. Tolkien depicted this folly as the refusal to throw the ring into the fires of Mt Doom.
GOD MANIFEST IN YOU
Thomas Torrance writes, “The Love that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit eternally are, has taken incarnate form in the Lord Jesus Christ for us and our salvation.
“The self-giving and self-sacrificial Love manifested in him flows from the self-giving and self-sacrificial Love of God and are that self-giving and sacrificial Love in redemptive action on our behalf in the world. To the fellowship of love which God establishes with us through the incarnation of his beloved Son in space and time there corresponds an eternal Fellowship of Love within God himself.
WHY LAW-MONGERING IS NOT IT
“The Freedom in which God enters into communion with us is grounded in and flows from the Freedom of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in their love for one another. The Communion which God eternally is in the mutual indwelling of the three Divine Persons within the relations of his one Being, he is toward us and with us and for us in his saving presence and loving activity in history. This is what the doctrine of the Holy Trinity supremely means, that God himself is Love.” (1) Your inclusion in God has nothing to do with law/letter that kills and everything to do that in Christ, you are included and made one with God in the kind of relationship that the trinity have with themselves.
(1) Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 162). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
