Merger

Beginning today God Likes You and Neo-Reformation have merged together into one new blog: Trinity and Humanity.

Jonathan and I have been publishing The Adopted Life together and blogging separately for well over a year now and we are both beginning to feel the pressure of trying to put out a monthly newsletter and keep up with our blogs – plus pastoring our churches and all the other ministry stuff we do!

God Likes You will continue to exist as a resource and archive of the last 15 months of blogging but I won’t be updating with new posts here, I’ll be joining with Jonathan to put our effort into the new blog.

I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation with all of you at Trinity and Humanity!

P.S. If you subscribed by email or reader to God Likes You you’ll want to subscribe to the new blog as well – your subscription won’t be automatically transferred.

The Good News of Mankind’s Inclusion in God…

 

…the Father, Son and Spirit…is SPREADING!!! Check out this blogpost from Steve McVey of Grace Walk Ministries that was sent to me by a good friend. In this blogpost, Steve is RIGHT ON with the Good News of Humanity’s Adoption and Inclusion into the Life of the Triune God.

Those of us in the Worldwide Church of God should find this especially encouraging at this time in our fellowship where the Holy Spirit continues to educate and clarify for us Who Jesus is in His relationship with His Father, the Spirit, Humanity and Creation! We are ALL definitely INCLUDED!

We really are in a Golden Age, or Neo-Reformation, of some grand and radical type that will “thrill the socks off” of a people in the world that desperately need and want to know they are included – in and apart from anything they do – good or bad! I can imagine they would especially be more open to it when their economical worlds are falling apart, and there doesn’t appear to be much hope in anything or anyone else!

Here is a copy of Steve’s Post:

It may be that the greatest single misunderstanding about the nature of salvation is the teaching that its essence revolves around a person accepting Christ into his life. “Won’t you accept Christ into your life?” unbelievers are so often asked. The idea that Christ wants to come into our lives is almost universally taught in most evangelical and charismatic churches.

“What’s wrong with that?” you might wonder. “Doesn’t He want to come into a person’s life?” The startling answer if we really take biblical teaching seriously is “no.” Salvation isn’t about us accepting Him into our lives. Instead, the gospel is the proclamation that Jesus Christ accepts you into His life.” “You did not choose me, but I have chosen you,” Jesus told His disciples.

The flesh loves to cling to the notion that we cast our vote for Jesus at salvation and that He then moved in and has been thankful to us ever since. The essence of salvation isn’t that you accept God, but that God has accepted you. Think about it – this triune God who has enjoyed eternal intimacy within the Godhead has brought us into the inner circle! He has accepted us in the Beloved!

Apart from Him, we have no life in which He could possibly dwell. In our co-crucifixion with Jesus, our old self was crucified with Him in order that the source of sin might be destroyed. See Romans 6:6. You have been crucified with Christ and you no longer live. (See Galatians 2:20) Now Christ is your life and in Him you find your very existence. See Colossians 3:4 and Acts 17:28.

Christ in your life? Not a chance. We have entered into His life and now share in the koinonia of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When we were God-hating, self-centered, blind-as-a-bat and dead-as-a-doornail sinners, Christ died for us. See Romans 5:8. By His grace and through His finished work on the cross, the eternal God has brought us into the eternal lovefest. We weren’t seeking God. Let’s not flatter ourselves. Nobody seeks Him, not one of us. (See Romans 3:11) But he clothed Himself in the garment of humanity and came here to bring us home, where we belong. He came to seek and to save us while we were lost. See Luke 19:10 .

He chose you. He came for you. He died to reconcile you to Himself. He raised you from a walking death. He made you alive and has seated you at the right hand of the Father, squarely situated in the middle of the eternal party that will never end. Only one response fits such a reality – Hallelujah!

President Barack Obama’s Faith

 

As I read President Barack Obama’s book entitled “The Audacity of Hope“, I am thoroughly encouraged on how Jesus has shared His human faith with him. I am encouraged at how full of Good News, inclusive, human, spiritual and physical it all is! (it sounds a great deal like Dr. Baxter Kruger’s wonderful “A Note On Jesus Christ and The Church“.!

I thought that as one who may not as of yet looked into President Obama’s faith, you might want to read some of it for yourself in his section called “Faith”, on pp. 244-246.

Here is a small section of it (the rest is pretty awesome, too!):

“I have recorded in a previous book the ways in which my early work in Chicago helped me grow into my man­hood-how my work with the pastors and laypeople there deepened my resolve to lead a public life, how they fortified my racial identity and confirmed my belief in the capacity of ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

But my experiences in Chicago also forced me to confront a dilemma that my mother never fully resolved in her own life: the fact that I had no community or shared traditions in which to ground my most deeply held beliefs. The Christians with whom I worked recognized themselves in me; they saw that I knew their Book and shared their val­ues and sang their songs.

But they sensed that a part of me remained removed, detached, an observer among them. I came to realize that without a vessel for my beliefs, with­out an unequivocal commitment to a particular commu­nity of faith, I would be consigned at some level to always remain apart, free in the way that my mother was free, but also alone in the same ways she was ultimately alone.

There are worse things than such freedom. My mother would live happily as a citizen of the world, stitching together a community of friends wherever she found her­self, satisfying her need for meaning in her work and in her children. In such a life I, too, might have contented myself had it not been for the particular attributes of the historically black church, attributes that helped me shed some of my skepticism and embrace the Christian faith.

For one thing, I was drawn to the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change. Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person. Out of necessity, the black church rarely had the luxury of separating individual salvation from collective salvation. It had to serve as the center of the community’s political, economic, and social as well as spiritual life; it understood in an intimate way the biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities.

In the history of these struggles, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death; rather, it was an active, palpable agent in the world. In the day-to-day work of the men and women I met in church each day, in their ability to “make a way out of no way” and maintain hope and dignity in the direst of circumstances, I could see the Word made manifest.

And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship, the grounding of faith in struggle, that the his­torically black church offered me a second insight: that faith doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubts, or that you relinquish your hold on this world.

Long before it became fashionable among television evangelists, the typical black sermon freely acknowledged that all Christians (including the pastors) could expect to still experience the same greed, resentment, lust, and anger that everyone else expe­rienced. The gospel songs, the happy feet, and the tears and shouts all spoke of a release, an acknowledgment, and finally a channeling of those emotions.

In the black community, the lines between sinner and saved were more fluid; the sins of those who came to church were not so different from the sins of those who didn’t, and so were as likely to be talked about with humor as with condernnation. You needed to come to church precisely because you were of this world, not apart from it; rich, poor, sinner, saved, you needed to embrace Christ precisely because you had sins to wash away – because you were human I and needed an ally in your difficult journey, to make the peaks and valleys smooth and render all those crooked paths straight.

It was because of these newfound understandings­ that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved-that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized.

It came about as a choice and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering his truth.”

Did you catch President Obama’s thoughts in paragraph’s 4 & 5 that sound A LOT like the good discussion regarding the Church community that we had on my last blogpost?! Ha-Ha! That’s what I’m talkin about Mr. President!

Are We Obligated to Attend Church…

…and is it a “serious sin to miss church attendance”? Is it even “a breaking of the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor”?

That was a conversation I found myself in recently as a friend invited me to share my comments on the subject. This friend had gone to church services recently and heard the conservative pastor utter such words from the pulpit. By the time I responded, I saw MANY other good and bad comments on the subject. I think most felt the pastor was being overly legalistic and misinterpreting the grace we have in Jesus.

After reading and getting a feel for the direction of the conversation, I decided to pitch in with what many who know me may consider to be a surprising response! Ha-Ha!

What do you think I would say to such a question in the Light of the Jesus, Whom I believe has included everyone and everything in the Relationship He shares with His Father in the Spirit?!

Well – no more need to guess! Here is what I responded with and how I personally reason out the subject in the Light of the Jesus Who has truly adopted all of us into the Life of the Trinity in His own HUMAN BODY! (Remember, I am just personally blogging here about MY thoughts, NOT trying to give you yours! I am open to learning and talking out things in community!) Edited for clarity!

“In Jesus’ grace I, too, have been getting clarity on Church/Worship over the past few years. I can relate with preaching about these things in ways not always faithful to Who Jesus really is! The most valuable thing I have learned lately about Church/Worship is that they are things that begin with Jesus, literally, in His Person! The bible helps us see that HE, Jesus, must and does mediate his relationship between God and man in His own human body! Worship and attending to God, in the first instance, is ONLY something that Jesus does! 

Knowing this helps us see that whenever we are worshiping as the Church, we are only sharing in the Son’s worship and attending to His Father. It is not something we muster up because we have seen and known God for ourselves or out of self-selected tradition! Nor is it something we avoid because we are “free”. Because Jesus DOES worship and attend to His Father as a human, there is a sense in which we are obligated to participate in his life of Worship!

This helps us see that to REALLY be “free” means to share in the life of Jesus AS HE IS! Often times, our discussions about freedom are really discussions only about liberties. We are at liberty to hide in a cave and live like a hermit, but we are not free to do that and experience positive consequences in relationships! So how did, and does, Jesus Worship His Father? In the entirety of His human life, as xxx pointed out, including Church attendance! 

 The bible takes seriously that there is a BODY of Christ on earth as distinct from other bodies. We do not have to miss the point that Jesus has a unique and distinct role for the Church that includes an obligation to attend and relate with each other, regularly! Historically, the Church gathers on Sunday, but we are obviously at liberty, and free, to meet on other days and occasions! However, gather we must! This gathering of the Church is HIS idea and is a necessary part of His making Himself known in the world!

We don’t measure this participation by anything we can come up with from within our fallen human reasoning! We reason in line with Who Jesus is Revealed to be, in the Spirit, in His Church (the community who embraces the Jesus Who is in Relationship with His Father and all of Creation in the Spirit.) As for sin, it would be a sin not to worship God or gather in His name – if it weren’t for Jesus! Jesus, however, does Worship His Father (for us and in our stead!) as a human! Jesus does ATTEND to His Father’s Will (for us and in our stead as a human) even when we don’t! This is why he is the Vicarious Man! He does to and for us what our sinful nature resists from within our human being!

God is worthy of a proper human response, including obligatory worship and attendance – and Jesus, thankfully and graciously, is responding in that obligatory way for each of us – and Jesus refuses to be Who He is without us! This obligation flows from the same heart, of the same God, of the same covenant (in both its old and new parts!). The God of the Old part of the Covenant is the same God of the New part!

The difference is that Jesus is meeting those obligations for us AS A HUMAN BEING because we never could or would apart from him! These obligations do not get or keep us saved or in God’s favor!! Yikes! These obligations are really opportunities to relate with God as He REALLY is – a Relational Being Who never does things truly alone!

 Yes, we who are called to the Church should participate in Jesus’ human Worship with the Church, regularly, (not living unto ourselves), AND, Yes, Jesus is standing in for us when we don’t, so we don’t panic – we repent (rethink), take up our cross and follow Jesus, as he supplies us grace! Rightly understood and explained, I have to go with the pastor on this one!”

Finally, I added:

To clarify, this does not mean keeping the literal Holy Days, and Sabbath’s of the Old part of His Covenant, but it does mean keeping the New things (Communion = common union!, Baptism! Church = his idea, not ours). There is not one of these New things that doesn’t speak to fellowship and community, but it is to be remembered that Jesus did each of these things for us and on our behalf so that even when we rebel and don’t do them, he stands in for us, being ever faithful as a man to God on our behalf! He will forever embrace us and stand in for us regardless, but obedience and sharing in his life even if we suffer for it is good, and not doing so is bad!

Jesus IS everywhere working in His Church and in the world, and because He is in all of those places we can honestly and genuinely pin Him down in all those places!! The reason for my sweeping statements about Jesus standing in for us is that all of our activity (in going to church, and NOT going to church), is FILLED WITH SIN, therefore we need him to stand in for us in every place of our rebellion in a vicarious way!! Karl Barth liked the word “Community” better than “church”, and so do I!

What is it about “obligatory” and “demand” that we don’t like, knowing that it comes from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?! This isn’t obligation and demand from the oppression of the evil one, but from He Who has given the World His one and only Son at great sacrifice and cost to Himself! He Who has embraced us in His Son and grasped us so tightly that he will never let us go! Those words have the best and most positive kind of meaning in the light of Jesus!

We must not let the misuse of words (and wrong intentions of sinful men in using them) keep us from a right understanding and use of them in the GRACIOUS LOVE AND UNCONDITIONAL MERCY of the Father, Son and Spirit! To be FREE in Christ is to be God’s SLAVE!!! What’s wrong with that? He is only the best Master one could ever have!! Ha-Ha!!

Embrace Your Humanity!

 

That is the encouragement I gave to an audience at the recent Homegoing Celebration (funeral) of a member in my local congregation, Mrs. Eloise Harrison.

I gave this special encouragement because:

1.) Eloise lived a full life of 85 years embracing her humanity – with 56 of those in a marriage she and her spouse both enjoyed , and,

2.) She embraced Jesus’ personal Revelation to her, in the Spirit, that He, Jesus,  has embraced her and all of humanity in His own PERMANENT GOD/HUMANNESS!!

I was proud to be her pastor, and can confirm all this good news after many good conversations with her in our HUMAN relating, in Christ, together at New Creation Community Church!

This is a HUGELY important point! If we miss this, we miss the Good News of the Gospel! Because we are sinners, we often run so quickly to the subject of salvation that we get “stuck” there and miss the more subtly obvious!

If Jesus is God with Us and He came to US and to save US – who is the US? Who are we? Are we not – is God not (in Jesus!) – HUMAN!? To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe that “God is with Man, as Man!” Do you see the staggering beauty of this Revelation of God in Christ? The Father, Son and Spirit haven’t demanded that we get ourselves into him, or become like him! God isn’t more interested in his rules than he is interested in relating with us as we are!!

This is the great Epiphany = the manifestation of God as man in Jesus! Who would have “thunk” it?! As Baxter Kruger often says, “The difference between Christianity and every other religion is that in religious mythology you always have to “get to God”. In Christianity God has come to us, remains with us as we are, and has gotten us into himself by getting into us – our humanity, literally!” Ha-Ha! John 14:20! Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that gracious? Isn’t that truly Good News?!

What greater reason could we have for attending barbeques, fish fry’s, picnics, family reunions, taking cruises, line dancing, break-dancing, walking for Leukemia, assisting the Diasabled Veterans of America, attending sports games and activities, celebrating birthdays, engaging in meaningful work with our minds and hands, attending celebration services with the Church, giving of our time/talent/treasure to family, friends and neighbors, and respectign people at funerals - than to SEE JESUS FOR WHO HE REALLY IS – the Relational God, who has embraced our humanity forever?!!

It cannot be honestly and historically denied! The biblical record is that Jesus Christ spent most of his human life NOT preaching and teaching in a formal and Jewish Rabbinical sense, but living and embracing his (our!)  humanity in community and relationships! The Son of Man came “eating and drinking”! Matt 11:19!

This is why Eloise embraced her humanity, as tough as it was sometimes! This is why you and I want to embrace human life, as tough as life can be! This is why we FEAR and HATE death! We were meant for life in the flesh and our guts know it!!

Christianity is NOT about trying to escape the flesh and becoming an eternal and flourescent lightbulb! I am NOT saying we won’t glow with joy and the new effervescence of glorified humanity, but I am saying that however we will be, WE WILL BE HUMAN!!

If you plan on spending any amount of personal time with Jesus Christ in eternity, then you better get used to wearing skin and carrying around a few bones in a human body! If you don’t plan on being human, you sure are going to be mad, or sad, for a long time  - because human you will be!! 1 Cor 15:22! Ha-Ha!!

God doesn’t throw his creation away like last weeks trash! He redeems it! He renews it! He makes it new!! Where do you think we get the idea of recycling from?! lol!

Encouragingly, the new body won’t be weak and wear out like this sin-filled one! It will be raised a strong and imperishable body! 1 Cor 15! This speaks to the “not yet” part of our life in Christ! In Him, in his literal human body, our human nature has been redeemed and renewed ALREADY, and that is why we can have real hope and certainty for a better quality of human life that we know “not yet”! Our real human life is hidden in Jesus with God!

So, embrace your humanity, NOW, and don’t be too fearful of who or what can kill the body! Jesus is a living witness to us all that God has joined us in our humanity forever, raised it anew, and has accepted, validated and confirmed that being human is good and very good! At great cost and sacrifice to himself, the Son of God will forever mediate to us other human beings the vibrant  relationship he shares with his Father in the Spirit, in his human being! 1 Tim 2:15!

WOW!!! Again!

Gospel Clarity on a “Puzzling” Scripture Passage

 

Because of the paradoxical nature in which scripture is written, and the lack of training in learning to hold those scriptures together as one whole piece in the Light of Jesus, there are MANY passages of scripture that can appear to be more difficult to understand than they actually are.

Recently, I received a question from a reader of this blog about such a “puzzling” passage in the light of other passages such as Eph 1:3-14, 1 Tim 4:9-10, which state clearly that God has adopted ALL of humanity in Christ, and is the Savior of ALL, IN HIMSELF – in and apart from our personally believing anything.

I thought you might appreciate the question and response, so here they are in that order:

Question: ”I was just reading the WCG Bible Study, The Gospel According to Paul, http://www.wcg.org/lit/gospel/gos5.htm

Also at the Reconciliation site, I read where the gentiles (Cornelius to be
exact) was not saved  until he received the gospel from Peter. (This did point out that his good works did not save him)

1 Cor 15:1-2 
1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached 
to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 
2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the 
word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain 

 

Of course, I understand how you cannot know by Whom you are saved (or that you are saved to begin with) until someone comes along to tell you (the gospel). But the way it is written, the gospel is what saves you, not “the gospel tells you by whom you are saved therefore believe it”.

To live a “saved life” is different than “the gospel saves you” when you talk to your average Christian who was taught standard Western philosophy.  To them, first the gospel saves you, then you live a saved life.

Can you clarify?”

My Response (edited for clarity):

Great questions and especially in light of our erroneous and abstract past teachings!

The FIRST answer, in the literal person of Jesus, instructs us in the fact that HE, JESUS HIMSELF, IS the Gospel, IS SALVATION! Luke 2:28-32! Therefore, whenever we see the words “Gospel” or “Saved”, we should first translate that word as “Jesus Christ”, the Son of God made flesh.

In other words, there is no Gospel that is JUST information about something OR someone = even Jesus! Literally, God and Man are reconciled in the literal God/Humanity of Jesus Christ! Because that is the Truth, you MUST believe it, personally, to experience its Truth and BE saved!

It is CRUCIAL how I am beginning to interpret all of this! If we do not start with Jesus being the Gospel, literally, in His very Person, then all we have are concepts and information and potential theories. Beginning with the literal Person of Jesus, we now have the most solid facts and TRUTH on which to receive information. Jesus iS the Truth! In this case, because Jesus is the Gospel, all of our humanity, and ALL people, are quite literally saved IN HIM.

Now, because that is true, we have something more than just information or a theory to believe in! We can know and trust that our salvation is IN HIM, literally, and not in ourselves! Therefore we do not have to worry that our salvation will ever be lost because we continue sinning, have doubts or challenges to our faith, or even blaspheme God after “getting saved”.

The key here is to keep the emphasis on how scripture speaks of salvation in all of its various forms, beginning with Jesus Christ Himself! Jesus is the Revelation of God in Living Person! Rev 1:1! Because Salvation really begins with God Himself, most scriptures on salvation should be interpreted in terms of BEING something we already are in the Person of Jesus! Because Jesus is the foundational truth of Salvation, we must BE transformed by that truth in the renewing of our minds by believing it and Being saved! We should BE who we already are in Jesus by embracing and trusting that objective fact.

Understanding all of this keeps us from falling into the trap of Arminianism (”I am saved primarily by my free will, repentance and belief!”) No! All of humanity is saved in the God/Humanity of Jesus Christ, quite literally! There is NO salvation apart from him and his!

However, because Jesus DID trust, believe and receive his Father as a REAL, distinct human being, in the Spirit (he IS FULLY human as we are, yet without sin!), we, too, must participate in our salvation the same way he did! This point keeps us out of the trap of universalism! He lives in us, does through us, and shares forever with us who he really is, a human being who believes and trusts God, personally, in the Spirit!

Salvation is objectively true of all, and for all, literally, in Jesus. Therefore we must subjectively accept, embrace and trust it in order to experience our salvation as Jesus does in His Humanity! We are not robots, but real distinct people in union with God in Jesus! But because we are only sharing in Who Jesus is, when we have come to personal faith, it is ONLY because he has acted graciously to help us share in his faith! We never have a faith of ourselves, doing “our part” by ourselves!!

One other important and often overlooked fact: Our salvation MUST already be complete in Christ in order for the Holy Spirit to be sent to us and awaken our minds, personally, to what Jesus HAS ALREADY DONE so that we can now share in HIS FAITH! We have to have been Adopted and Saved by Jesus (past tense), FIRST, in order to BE Adopted and Saved by the Holy Spirit’s awakening, SECOND! The Holy Spirit tells us, personally, about a finished act and fact that has happened to all people and things in Jesus, and he invites us, personally and collectively, to believe it and BE it (embrace it as truth) in God’s grace, THROUGH FAITH!

We are saved by GRACE (we already have it FREE in the God/humanity of Jesus!!), through FAITH (if we don’t believe and embrace it personally it doesn’t do us much good, even if we do get a renewed body like Jesus’ – and we WILL all get a transformed body like his, regardless - 1 Cor 15:22, Eph 2:4-10!)

In the end, as believers, what we should say to people, in one way or another, is, “You have been saved in the person of Jesus Christ, Who is the Savior of the world! Therefore, embrace and believe HIM and BE saved (BE who you really are in him!), because those Who believe Him are ESPECIALLY saved, and experience a qualitative difference and positive transformation in their human lives, NOW and FOREVER! I Tim 4:9-10! In God’s grace, we all get to participate in the exact and risen human life of Jesus Christ, in the Spirit! 1 John 4:17. Won’t you believe and participate in this life along with us?!”

Your last comment was REALLY correct: “To them, first the gospel saves you, then you live a saved life.” Right! Jesus, the Gospel, saved us – now we can BE and live a saved life in the Grace of the Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son! Ha-Ha!!

I hope this helps!

Peace, Love and Blessings!

Pastor T

Is There REALLY an Unpardonable Sin?

 

Technically speaking – NO! (there is no scripture that actually says “unpardonable”).  And untechnically speaking – Yes! (there is a sin the bible says won’t be forgiven).

That probably doesn’t immediately help those who are fearful that they have committed this sin, but I begin this way so that we can learn to appreciate that the bible educates us as much through paradox as through other methods. In interpreting the scriptures we need to be able to hold two apparently contradictory thoughts together as one whole in order to get at a more accurate and proper understanding of God’s grace in the light of Jesus Christ!

I will try to simplify what can be discussed in a longer way, and if you want a longer answer simply Google “unpardonable sin”. There is lots of good stuff out there.

Here are the scriptures used to discuss this topic (and notice the special emphasis on dishonoring God the Holy Spirit – Who has been sent to educate us about the Truth – John 16!):

Mark 3:22-30 and Matt 12:31-32 . 

I promised to follow up with this post based on Boyd’s comments from my last post, so here are godly and biblical thoughts in the Revelation of Jesus Christ:

1.) Is Jesus Fully God and Fully Man in One Person without mixture or confusion? We in Christianity say “Yes!!” Our creeds emphasize this, especially the Chalcedon Creed. The significance of this is that it was agreed upon by the church at large (including the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and many Protestant Christian churches).

PLEASE NOTICE THAT TO GET AT ANY TRUTH WE MUST BEGIN WITH ANSWERING THE QUESTION: WHO IS JESUS?

2.) This means that, technically speaking, when the Son of God became Man He took on the fullness of our actual fallen human nature, forgiving, saving and healing everything that was wrong with that broken human nature. As the old church father’s would say, whatever Jesus did not assume, he did not forgive, or save or heal. In reverse, whatever he did assume, was completely and utterly forgiven, saved and healed.

So, if you don’t believe that Jesus was fully human, you cannot hold as true that you or anyone can ever be fully forgiven, healed or saved! That would be the end of any hope for anyone or anything – period! It would also be a massive failure on God’s part to have sent his Son to save us, only to realize that he only almost saved us! Yikes! We need a very different and REAL God thank you very much!!

On the other hand, to believe God the Son became forever fully human, while remaining fully God, means that all of humanity is fully forgiven, saved and healed in the Person of Jesus Christ. This means hope for the good future of everyone and everything! It also means massive success on God’s part – having sent his Son to save the lost and realizing that he actually did! Hallelujah! Now THAT is the Good News!

3.) Did you see that word “forgiveness” in those statements above? Forgiveness is NOT just an “I forgive you” from the mouth of God, or pouring out Jesus’ blood externally on Jerusalem sand to fix your real 21st century relational problems! Forgiveness is the act of God making things RIGHT, LITERALLY, in the very Person of His Son Jesus! Of making things right in our real and fallen human nature, so that there is ACTUAL reconciliation and ACTUAL redemption in our humanity, not pretend reconciliation and fake redemption!

To take all of this seriously is to KNOW that every sin imaginable, including your sins against God the Father, Son AND Spirit (Who is ONE!) are forgiven, LITERALLY, in Jesus!!! 

4.) So where does the unforgiven part come in? Good question!

If everyone and everything is completely forgiven and made right in Jesus Christ, this means that anything we have said or spoken, or thought in a wrong manner against God the Father, Son and Spirit, and other people and creatures is forgiven! That is what Jesus is trying to emphasize in his comments when he says that whatever we say against the Son of Man will be forgiven.

We do this in our lostness and our ignorance, and that is why Jesus forgave even that! Father please forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing! Luke 23:34!

HOWEVER, if God the Holy Spirit shares with you this truth of your complete and total forgiveness, salvation and healing in Jesus (and He does and forever will!), BUT you, in essence, keep calling Him a liar and refuse to embrace the truth – HE IS NEVER GOING TO FORGIVE THAT! In other, more clear words, for God the Holy Spirit not to forgive that sin means for Him not to AGREE WITH YOUR LIES ABOUT HIS TRUTH!!! How could He?! You, in your distinction can deny the truth, but He will NOT EVER DENY HIMSELF!! He IS the Truth!

It’s not that your sin and blashemy against the Holy Spirit has not been forgiven, it’s just that YOU keep thinking and acting like it has not been forgiven, even when He helps you clearly see in the Person of Jesus that it has been forgiven! You are not treating the Holy Spirit like God but are acting like God yourself and that can’t be forgiven = or BE RECEIVED AS FORGIVEN BY YOU as long as you keep calling that Truth a lie!!)

I am currently in a red jump suit as I write this. As long as I receive this jump suit for what it is, I am in a red jump suit. However, in an intentional moment of stupidity and rebellion I can refuse to see it as a red jump suit and call it a blue jump suit (even though I can plainly see it is a red one!) As long as I think it is blue, it is “not” red to me, as bright red as it may really be! No sane person embracing their sanity (instead of embracing my self-chosen insanity) could ever forgive me or agree with me that the suit is blue when it is plainly red unless they wanted to purposefully participate in ignorance!!

Do you get a sense of the intentional insanity that we can choose in our distinction – potentially forever?! Good Grief! That would be eternal Hell fire and brimstone for sure, ESPECIALLY in trying to relate with others!! What “burns” more than bad relationships in a life of relationships???! Nothing!!

So, in the Relational power of the Spirit Who is with you and all people - change your mind and believe the Good News! You are wholly adopted, included, forgiven, healed and saved in the Very Person and Humanity of Jesus Christ – even from your blasphemy against God!  I John 2:1-2!

Don’t trample this truth underfoot and steal your own joy by participating in your completely forgiven, healed and saved humanity as a willfully, sinful, and distinct foolish person! Heb 10:26!

On Vacation…

…through December 28th, 2008, so I hope to be refreshed and return with more participation and blog-post education in the Father, Son and Spirit, in our Adoption!

Continue to BE embraced by the Father Who has embraced us so tightly in His Son Jesus, in the Spirit, that He will NEVER Let us Go!!!

Thanks for your share in the reading, and helpful thoughts and comments made on this blog, as we interact in the challenge of believing the Triune God for being so good, right in the middle of our darkness and blindness!

Merry Christ-centered Christmas and MUCH Peace, Love and Blessings to you in Him!

Timothy J. Brassell

Is Satan Reconciled and Redeemed in Jesus?, part 2

 

Well, hopefully you have had a chance to see my Christ-centered and biblical response to this question. If not, you can see that more in-depth response here.

You can probably guess, accurately, that my article had no lack of controversial comments and responses! Since I have elaborated on a basic Christian approach and answer to that question, I would like to add yet another way of arriving at the answer, biblically. I got this idea from a person who was highly encouraged by the answer I gave in my article, in the Light of Jesus, and who referred to a portion of this biblical passage.

Here is the passage, taken from Jesus’ most famous sermon, outlined in Matthew 5:43-48(NRSV):

43 ”You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The context of this passage is Jesus teaching his disciples, crowds, and even the Pharisees about how the Kingdom of God works in contrast to how the kingdoms of fallen creatures operate. By his words, hyperbole, rhetoric (and even humor!), Jesus is explaining that having good external behavior alone, such as the law emphasized, is not the Good News. Something even more fundamental, deep and good must happen from within our mind, souls and personal character that PRECEDES action/s.

But the bottom line, Jesus says, is that the Kingdom of God is about REAL RECONCILIATION, not just things that appear to be reconciliatory! In the verses above He is emphasizing that when this REAL RECONCILIATION is participated in, it leads to ACTUAL RECONCILIATION and RECONCILING BEHAVIOR that even involves loving our enemies in mind, word and in deed!

REAL LOVE, mind you! Not the kind of “love” that says, “Step on me again cause I really don’t matter and I am not really important!” Nor the kind of “love” that says,”Because I love you, I am going to do to you exactly what you have done to me. An eye for an eye!” BUT, the kind of love that says, “I do not approve of your love but am free to transcend it in action that doesn’t “fight or flight” but stands here and keeps loving – even on you my enemy!!!”

So, how does this relate to the question “Is Satan Reconciled and Redeemed in Jesus?” Well, if Jesus is telling us that ultimately His Kingdom acts in His real, loving and reconciling mind, words and deeds, AND, that we can share in this ONLY TRUE WAY OF GOD, then,

1.) Is it Christ-centered and reasonable to think that the Father is asking us to love our enemies while he hates his (Satan?)

2.) Is it Christ-centered and logical to think that Jesus is asking us to be reconciled with our enemies while he remains unreconciled with his (Satan?)

3.) Is it Christ-centered and rational to think that the Holy Spirit is asking us to share in HIS redemptive character, words and deeds,with our enemies, while He hypocritically does not?

I think you see the point, don’t you?

I conclude with a paragraph from a GREAT BOOK, “The Secret Message of Jesus” by Brian McLaren, where he puts the scriptures noted above in the context of our modern way of thinking and speaking, by writing on p.127:

“The Kingdom of God calls you to a higher way of living. It’s not just about loving friends and hating enemies. It’s about loving your enemies. This is what the King does, so this is the way of the Kingdom. God is good to all – including evil people. God’s perfection is a compassionate perfection. That’s the kind of love you need to have in God’s Kingdom – a compassionate perfection that transcends old divisions of us/them and neighbor enemy, that loves those that do not yet love you. We will never reach universal reconciliation in the Kingdom of God until we move beyond conventional religious morality and believe in and practice this radical, higher plan.”

As those who embrace Jesus Christ in his grace, we could hardly answer the main question of this blog post better ourselves, biblically, could we?!

Yes, The Father, Son and Spirit TRULY Loves and Likes all of the creatures in His Creation MORE than He Loves Himself as the One True God in Three Persons! Those who embrace this Truth will forever GASP and be MYSTIFIED by its incomprehensible heighth, depth and width!!!

Is Satan Reconciled and Redeemed in Jesus?

 

Is a COMMON question asked by those who are beginning to understand the implications of answering the question “Who is Jesus?” I am sure that many of you have asked, or are asking, the same question, now that you are beginning to grasp the significance of the Incarnation of the Son of God. I am also sure that many of you already have an answer, too! Perhaps a clarifying one! (feel free to make your comments on this blog, too! Perhaps you can add some insights on what you are learning about this!)

It seems that we have only had about two things to say about the Incarnation of God’s Son for the most part:

1.) It can get you into heaven, and

2.) it can get you out of hell, IF…!!!!

From a certain perspective, I definitely agree with those statements, but I agree even more with Saint Athanasius, staunch defender and main drafter of the Nicene Creed, when he wrote:

“In short, such and so many are the Savior’s achievements that follow from His Incarnation, that to try to number them is like gazing at the open sea and trying to count the waves. One cannot see all the waves with one’s eyes, for when one tries to do so those that are following on baffle one’s senses. Even so, when one wants to take in all the achievements of Christ in the body, one cannot do so, even by reckoning them up, for the things that transcend one’s thought are always more than those one thinks that one has grasped.”  http://www.theologywebsite.com/etext/athanasius/ch8.shtml 

Yes, the results of the Incarnation truly baffle our limited senses and minds! We also, have to remember to start all of our Gospel responses, no matter what they are, with a Who, rather than a “thing” mind-set! NOT “it” can get you into Heaven, or “it” can get you out of hell! Jesus can…!!! 

In that “door opening” phrase of Athanasius above, I think we must at least begin to grapple with the fact that the Incarnation of the Son of God has had a larger and more positive impact upon all people and things, including Satan, than we have first been led to believe! After all, Satan is a created being, too, utterly dependent upon God, in Christ, to Live, Move and have his Being, right!? Acts 17:28, Colossians 1.

So now, in answering the question “Is Satan Reconciled and Redeemed in Jesus?”, I believe some of you are more prepared for the Christ-centered, biblical and Gospel answer I plan to give…

….in the next issue of The Adopted Life! . You didn’t think I was going to set a world record for the world’s longest blog post did (I’ve already done that! Actually, I don’t have space to write it all out here! Ha-Ha!

That issue of the Adopted Life can be found here, and will be out on December 4th, 2008. It can even come conveniently to an e-mail box near you if you will simply inquire about it at: theadoptedlife@gmail.com . Don’t forget my friend Jonathan’s blog, too! Or Baxter’s! Or Pastor Paul’s! or Martin’s!

or Frank Ancona’s Website!! New and improved and good!!!

Peace, Love and Blessings to You in the Christ Who encourages us to Ask, Seek, and Knock if we want to know something, and Who has promised that it shall be given, found, and opened unto us (YOU!!)