I went to a church service last night, hoping to have some fellowship with friends, hoping they would go out or something after the meeting. I left frustrated. It was good for a church service...good songs, a more biblical message than most...
But it was another show. No fellowship. Little supernatural manifestation of God's grace. It would have been much better to stay home and spend time with my daughters.
As my understanding grows of how rich and how generous God is, I am increasingly becoming convinced that if the church doesn't have revival, it's because that's not what the church wants. If the church doesn't have God's grace manifesting supernaturally, healing, powerful prophetic words, people being set free from demons, people laughing with the joy of the Lord and weeping because they want their lives to reflect God's holiness, and all kinds of other manifestations of God's grace, it's because that's simply not what the church values.
God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. What revival has ever come without a message that offended some, requiring humility to receive? Read the instructions for Christians meetings in 1st Corinthians 11-14. The meeting included a meal, and every member flowing supernturally in God's grace with the various manifestations of the Spirit. Anything less was failing to discern the body of Christ and one member saying to the others "I don't need you." Read chapter 12 and tell me how a spectator event or one-man show is not in disobedience to these instructions. Chapter 13-the goal is love or we are like a noisy gong or clanging symbol. (Currently it usually feels like an event to hype the people up and keep them needing the people who get their tithes, keeping those people in control, growing the organizations' power and numbers....not really about the church edifying itself.)
Chapter 14, all can prophesy, if a revelation comes to someone else let the first one sit down and allow one or two other prophets to speak. And who are you to say women can't speak...did God's word originate with you? Finally, let everything be done in an order that facilitates the operation of the whole church as one body, with no member being left out.
If we dishonor any member of the body of Christ, we dishonor Christ. If Jesus wants to manifest himself in some way through anybody and our regular Christian meetings don't facilitate that, then it is as if Jesus showed up but we didn't have room in our program for him. When most members are doing nothing to build up the whole body of Christ in our meetings, it is as if the body of Christ in that place is paralyzed.
This is just one example of how it is pride that is keeping the church from revival. Scripture's commands are clear. Romans 15 says you are brimming with knowledge and able to instruct each other. Colossians says to teach and exhort each other. Hebrews says "By this time you should be teachers."
That is not to say we can "NEVER" have a big meeting with a special speaker, or that there isn't a context for it. Jesus and the early church had big meetings, but they were mostly evangelistic, not for regular fellowship or discipleship. There are times when a visiting speaker comes who is building up the church, we have a special meeting, that's totally legit.
But many church communities have NO context in which they obey the Biblical instructions for a regular meeting. Even the small groups and weekday meetings are often like miniature church services, spectator events.
Humility receives corrections and obeys. Pride says "We do it this way, it really isn't so bad." I'm finding locally that many people just want to do what they've done before, they think they are rich but they are living in spiritual poverty. They like their church services and then when people aren't edified and don't find God's grace flowing or any opportunity to obey Jesus in their meetings, they call those people "unchurched."
They think they can do church fine. There's no dependance on the Holy Spirit, saying "Holy Spirit, help! We can't do this without you! It's no good if you don't move, touch people, and do what only You can do! We yeild to You." They don't have revival because they don't want it, and they would have it if they did. Some of the very people in that service went to a restaurant with me and saw the whole staff receive prayer with everyone in need receiving healing miracles....but they don't have that happening in their church services and they are happy with the way it is. Some of them have seen us pray for people outside of church services and they fall on the concrete under God's power, no emotionalism. They have seen that, they know it's available. Why don't they have it in their church services? They Holy Spirit's work and what only He can do is not what is valuable to them. It's not what's important to them. They have their pastor and their program.
So by now it's so hard to even sit through their program, especially if they sing songs about wanting revival and I know they don't.
If we aren't having revival, then pride needs to be confronted, and it is going to offend some people. There is no revival without repentance. There is no change without first recognizing that you need change, that you are poor, blind, and naked if you're doing it on your own power, and that you are helpless without the Holy Spirit. And then there is no change if we do not change. God says "Listen to my reproof, and I will pour out my Spirit on you."
Price hack: The Mechanics of Miracles is now available as an audio book. The Audible Book is 8.99 by itself, but if you have bought the kindle version first, which is currently on the 99 cent promotional launch price, Amazon gives the option to add the audible book for $1.99. You get the kindle and audible book for 2.98 rather than just getting the audible book for 8.99!
Enter a "new normal" of God's glory and miracles! After experiencing thousands of miracles over the last 19 years, missionary Jonathan Brenneman shares nearly 100 supernatural testimonies and a detailed study of how God’s invisible Spirit manifests tangibly in power among us.
“I probably have more than two dozen healing works on my shelf published in the last few years. Some of these works are quite good, but I don’t think any of the authors have gone where Jonathan has gone. I would consider him an expert on this topic.”
-Pastor J.D. King, Author Regeneration: A Complete History of Healing in the Christian Church
A brother sent me this link which describes the way we got to some of the structure in our churches.
I sought to set forth the sort of pattern we have in the gospels ,Acts , the new churches and the Protocol descriptions of Ephesians 4 and 1 John 1.
Jesus is forming Himself in us .
We do what God has us doing .
If you read the history excerpts here they have already departed from what the gospels and Acts and the letters are about . You can see how it was but a hop step and a jump straight into Catholicism .
Step one is Jesus at the brazen altar ....our watery funeral and then being baptised in the Spirit to be functioning priests
Step two
Is our new inheritance , being able to gather as this new thing in the earth called Ekklesia , Body under one Head ,as led by the Holy Spirit
Step Three
Is whole of life living following the Holy Spirit . Which is both unity of the church and living Galatians 2.20. The Holiest place emblem is the acacia box mercy seat with three forms of developed Word
The Law of the Spirit of life ...the tablets
Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word from the mouth of God . Manna
The Spoken Word of faith . Instances of Declaration . The almond stick .
And in and around us is the Khavod glory which God has to do .
He makes of us ministers of fire who speak God's Word or ministers of healing and deliverance .
Partly grown Word in us looks like the disciples trying to haul in the biggest nets ......
This is the pyramid shape of denominational , evangelical and charismatic churches.
Full grown word is people who have gone into the ground and been raised , and start finding each other and flowing as groups of ministries .
The End product of Word is psalm 122, a City compact together .
It's not socialism , like a bunch of Mark types that haven't been into the ground yet .
It's circumcised ministry that never allows the holy Word to be swept aside by an illegal cup of tea.
New Testament Greek: ἐν Χριστῷ translated as ‘In Christ’ Milk or meat?
https://www.unlessaseed.com/blog
‘I could not write to you as spiritually mature but as fleshly, as babes in Christ…I fed you with milk not solid food…you are still fleshly…and are behaving like mere men.’ 1 Cor 3v1-4
‘Though by this time you should be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary lessons…you need milk, not solid food…solid food belongs to the mature…let us go on to maturity’ Heb 5v12-14; 6 v1
It is late August. Apples are almost ripe. Blackberries are softening, a little sour and hard, plums are turning deep purple, and the ripe ones taste sweet.
Babies are born with perfectly formed organs. The heart beats and the kidneys are hard at work. The parents, of course, hope that, in time, the baby will learn to walk, talk, eat from a spoon, run, and become literate, numerate, and physically coordinated. Into teens, and particular abilities, personality traits, likes, and dislikes become strong features, all developing into adulthood. By the late teens and early twenties, the teenager has become an adult, able to live independently of parents.
The process is invisible. It is a mystery. All we know is, that given the right food and growing conditions, all living organisms mature. We also know that abuse, trauma, various medical conditions, and poverty can severely disrupt, halt, or prevent the process from reaching the end goal.
In the New Testament, there is a similar expectation for believers to reach spiritual maturity in Christ; and warnings that the process is not automatic and spiritual growth can be halted.
The process towards spiritual maturity may be a mystery but, just as the observable symptoms of physical, mental, and emotional immaturity are sometimes plain to see, the New Testament writers – Peter, John, and Paul – all write to churches where they have detected developmental problems.
Birth
In Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, he says:
‘Unless one is born again…of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven’ John 3v1f
Jesus was repackaging the message of the New Covenant as prophesied by Jeremiah and Ezekiel that God would remove our stony hearts and replace them with new fleshy hearts, a new spirit, and His Holy Spirit.
Babies are born with perfectly formed organs. The heart beats and the kidneys are hard at work
When someone is ‘born again’ they are a babe in Christ. Everything is fully formed. The new heart and spirit are fully functioning. On day one as a believer the communion between the Holy Spirit and the person’s new spirit has begun. Radical changes can take place from day one. But moving on to maturity is another matter!
New Testament illustrations
• Discipleship – a disciple is like an apprentice, learning various skills, ways of thinking; it’s an information and formation process. The disciple becomes like the master.
• Little children, young men, fathers.
‘I have written to you, little children because your sins are forgiven…I have written to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one, I write to you fathers because you have known Him who is from the beginning’ 1 John 2v12-14
• Mere men, fleshly, spiritually mature
‘I could not write to you as spiritually mature but as fleshly, as babies in Christ…you are still fleshly…and are behaving like mere men.’ 1 Cor 3v1-4
• Foundations – ‘let us move on to maturity not laying again the foundation’ Heb 6v2
Point 1: Mere men, fleshly, spiritually mature
The apostolic letters from Peter, John, and Paul all address ongoing problems occurring in the churches. In Romans, Paul addresses the division between Gentile and Jewish believers. In both letters to the Corinthians, he highlights the factions and particular sexual sins as evidence of immaturity. In Galatians, he warns of the dire consequences of retreating from faith to legalism.
John is tackling a sensitive church issue where there has been a breakdown in the relationship between John and Diotrophes, a leader who ‘loves to have the pre-eminence’ 2 John 9 and has barred the apostle John, the close friend of Jesus, from the church!
Peter’s two epistles end with a charge to ‘grow in the grace of our Lord’
It is Paul’s response to the church in Corinth suffering with factions following certain personalities and preachers that sheds some light on spiritual maturity. The church situation is not unlike our own day with the body of Christ divided denominationally.
Mere men/Natural man – Paul is writing to believers reminding them that they are not mere men. You were, he says, but now you are ‘born again not just of water (natural birth) but of the Spirit (spiritual birth)’
Fleshly believers, babies in Christ – flesh here doesn’t refer to ‘skin’ but to human abilities intricately woven into our souls: our ability to reason, to be sensitive emotionally, and to make decisions; summarised as mind, emotions, and will. These are believers, but who have either never learnt, or forgotten, or are wilfully ignoring the Spirit, relying on their own abilities to live, love, and find liberty. Their decisions over money, sex, and associations are based on preference rather than the voice of the Spirit of Christ. Such believers are mimicking their pre-Christian state and are acting like ‘mere men’.
flesh here doesn’t refer to ‘skin’ but to human abilities intricately woven into our souls
To summarise: these believers are ‘soulish’ living from their own abilities and preferences, the symptoms are division, factions, and sexual immorality, rather than ‘spiritual’ living from the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Spiritually mature – in the New Covenant the relationship between the believer and the living God is restored and underway from day one. Progress is entirely by grace – a free gift, freely given – and via the communion between the believer’s new spirit and the Holy Spirit.
Learning to ‘walk in the Spirit’ is the way ahead. Jesus likened this to a fountain: ‘If you knew the gift of God…He would have given you living water…whoever drinks of the water I give will never thirst…it will become in Him a fountain of living water…’ John 4 v 10-14
The soul may be a good servant but it’s a lousy master. Our minds, emotions, and wills, are amazing; they are not inherently evil or inferior to our spirit, nor are our bodies – but we become spiritually mature when led by the Spirit in every aspect of life, not just Christian meetings!
The church in Corinth had begun to switch from the Spirit to ‘wisdom’:
‘We speak wisdom to the mature, yet not the wisdom of this age…not in words which man teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual with spiritual but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned’ 1 Cor 2 whole chapter
Point 2: Not laying again the foundations
There is some humour in these illustrations!
It’s easy to forget with the seriousness of the subject matter, but the sight of a teenager or adult still suckling milk only from his or her mother’s breast is as shocking – and funny – as watching a homeowner, periodically, dismantling a perfectly good house, digging up the foundations and starting all over again. Madness! It’s the stuff of comedy.
And yet, whoever wrote the epistle to the Hebrews was saying just that! He was watching a church reexamining the foundations and never building on the foundations. The point is twofold: firstly the foundations are perfectly adequate, they don’t need digging up and relaying - but if you insist on relaying them, remember what they are.
The foundations are perfectly good – they pass the builder’s regs and the surveyor’s report. And they are ‘living foundations’ in operation 24/7 in the life of the believer. They are neither consigned to the past (e.g. conversion to Christ) nor to the future (e.g. the day of resurrection or judgement) but are eternal and, therefore, to be in operation continually.
1. Repentance from dead works and faith towards God
This is not the repentance and faith required to become a believer, it is a living word, a description of what it is like to be spiritually discerning. In this case the ability – from the Holy Spirit – to discern between dead works and living works. Dead works are not necessarily ‘sinful’ (e.g. adultery, murder, theft) but anything that your new spirit does not ‘witness’ with the Holy Spirit.
2. Doctrines of baptisms
Those in Christ should have been plunged into the Messiah (baptised into Christ), baptised in the Holy Spirit, and baptised into the body of Christ. Our water baptism symbolising these baptisms but spiritually these three baptisms are one drama being seen in three dimensions and serve as living foundations upon which to build.
The believer should be operating 24/7 out from Christ Himself, the power of the Spirit, and their living place as a living stone in the body of Christ.
3. Resurrection of the dead
Paul says of God: ‘God, who gives life to the dead’ Rom 4v17. This is a general statement but its application in this instance is the birth of Isaac, the ‘son of promise’ from Abraham and Sarah in their old age: ‘Abraham did not consider his own body, already dead as he was about 100 years old and the deadness of Sarah’s womb…being fully convinced that God was able to perform what He had promised’ v19-21.
When Jesus spoke of the resurrection he said: ‘Truly I say to you the hour is coming and now is when the, dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live…do not be shocked, the hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth – those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation’ John 5v25-29
‘Abraham did not consider his own body, already dead as he was about 100 years old and the deadness of Sarah’s womb…being fully convinced that God was able to perform what He had promised’
The New Testament is a radical message. It says that before we are placed ‘in Christ’ we are dead, in a grave, and unable to lift ourselves up, into life. But that, in this state, when we hear the gospel – the voice of the Son of God – if we have the same faith in the word of God as Abraham, we are raised to life. Now. It is the story of every person who finds faith in Christ.
There is also the promise of resurrection at the end, on the last day. And that Jesus’s bodily resurrection was a ‘first fruit’. That day is coming, but these foundation stones are living stones, they refer to the 24/7 experience of being led by the Spirit. In different circumstances we are faced with the voice of the Spirit saying ‘x’ whilst our mind looks at the ‘facts’ and concludes ‘x is impossible,’ Abraham looked at his impotent body and his post-menopausal wife’s body but believed the word of God even though it contradicted the facts.
4. Eternal judgement
Again it is important not to consign this foundation stone to the past ‘He who believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgement but has passed from death into life’ John 5 v 24,25 or entirely to the future day of judgement ‘the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ’ Rom 2 v 16.
This is a living word that each believer builds on – his or her ability to ‘compare spiritual with spiritual’ and to grow in the ability to live a life full of spiritual discernment in every circumstance.
Conclusions – and solid food?
None of us who are ‘in Christ’ can avoid the call to maturity. How the Holy Spirit brings about our maturity in Christ is an even deeper mystery than scientists trying to unpick the various stages of physical maturity. Spiritual maturity is an invisible process – invisible to others but known to God who looks on the heart.
There is a time element; the natural world shows us this with plants and animals reaching physical maturity along fairly predictable timelines, but mental and emotional maturity doesn’t always coincide with reaching physical maturity. Many enter adult life with a mature physical body but a sense of mental or emotional incompleteness or limitations.
Spiritually, those in Christ who have received the Holy Spirit are born into a new trajectory towards spiritual maturity. The spirit-Spirit communion with the promised ‘fountain of living water’ affects our souls and bodies and, therefore, every part of life: family, friends, work, interests, money, sex, and associations – our neighbours.
What is the ‘solid food’ that Paul and the writer of the letter to Hebrews call us to eat?
A cursory look at the letters to the churches whether written by Paul, Peter, or John can be divided into two halves.
The first half is devoted to doctrine – substitutionary and inclusive atonement for example -whereas, in the second half, the authors are usually saying, ‘OK now you know what God has done for you through the death and resurrection of Christ, now that you know that you are forgiven and a child of God, in Christ and Christ is in you, now you know that you were crucified with Christ and have been raised as a new creation in Him, now that you have received the gift of the Spirit…now that you know the A,B,C of the gospel, out you go into the world.’
What is the ‘solid food’ that Paul and the writer of the letter to Hebrews call us to eat?
The second half says: back to your families, your friends, your workplaces, your churches, and into your callings, gifts and ministries from the Spirit…overcome here, get some victories in the world under your belt as John’s ‘young men’ who overcome the evil one being strong in the word.
Then you are on the path towards being a ‘father’ who knows God who is from the beginning, living in the world with an eternal perspective, abiding in the ‘I am’, like Jesus.
The final ‘I am’ statement in John’s gospel Jesus states ‘I am the vine; you are the branches’. We’re back to the mystery of watching apples ripen on the tree, or here in John 15, to grapes maturing on the vine. As long as we as branches are in Christ, our destiny of maturity is inevitable…as long as we let the Father the gardener approach us with His two knives.
‘My father is the gardener, He cuts off every branch in Me that does not bear fruit and prunes every branch that does bear fruit so that it can bear more fruit’ John 15v1,2
The cutting out of dead branches is ‘repentance of dead works and faith towards God’ in operation: something that may have born fruit in the past is now ‘dead’ and needs to be excised; the knife is out. Similarly, if we are bearing fruit, the wisdom of the Father is to prune, to cut back fruit-bearing branches for the sake of producing better quality fruit.
Babies and infants in Christ are prone to getting very upset at this discipline of the Father just as natural small children get upset because they cannot see the bigger picture. Equally young men will fight and resist the Father as the gardener, wielding the knife. ‘Can’t you see the fruit, Father?’ or ‘With your life within me, I know this can live and bear fruit!’. But a father in Christ understands the whole picture, understands the Father’s wisdom, and has faith that, no matter how the Father wields His knife, it will be to produce more fruit.
Note from Chris Welch.....I dont like saying as Christ because of His totality. But I love that He would humble Himself to manifest as us.....we are Christ branches in His vine
Now, I can swim. If you threw me into the sea, I would not sink but float....
https://www.unlessaseed.com/blog
In Christ: Article 2 New Testament Greek: ἐν Χριστῷ translated as ‘In Christ’ – ‘Christ in us’ or ‘Christ as us?’
‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I know live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who love men and gave His life for me’ Gal 2v20
In this verse, Paul summarises the substitutionary and the inclusive nature of the sacrifice of Christ and combines them with Christ in us.
But Christ as us?
A friend of mine, Chris Welch, has used this ‘as Christ’ variation on ἐν Χριστῷ, for some years.
My initial reaction to ‘as Christ’ was to question its basis, after all, the Greek doesn’t support the translation! Worse, it felt arrogant…a horrible feeling…particularly if you’re steeped in British culture of needing to appear modest at all costs.
On reflection though, ‘as Christ’ might not appeal to the literalist in me but it does to my poetic, interpretative side, so, in Article 2, I want to explore the doublet ‘as Christ’ and its corollary ‘Christ in our form’ without departing from the biblical text.
Point 1. Paul’s two-step revelation
Paul’s dramatic encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus is well known. What is less well appreciated, is that there is an undisclosed time delay between the risen Jesus Christ being revealed TO Paul and the later revelation of Christ IN Paul:
‘When it pleased God…to reveal His Son in me…’ Galatians 1 v 16
Paul’s ministry as an apostle and his many letters refer to ‘Christ in you’ or ‘in Christ’. This revelation profoundly affected his life and sense of calling: in one letter, to the church in Ephesus, Paul writes ‘in Christ’ 35 times and in his letter to the church in Colossae, Paul writes:
‘I became a minister…to preach the word of God, the mystery…hidden for ages…but now revealed…Christ in you, the hope of glory’ Col 1v24-27
Point 3. The body of Christ
Our biological bodies are made from trillions of microscopic cells. Each one of those cells is alive and each has a different function.
My name is John Stevens. All my cells are alive with my life, all my cells are ‘in John Stevens’ and ‘John Stevens is in’ every cell. So each cell is exhibiting life as ‘as John Stevens’ i.e. the life of John Stevens in its own form, functioning according to its calling and design as a liver cell, or colour receptor cell in the retina, or a humble skin cell.
We all have our specific functions in Christ.
The life of each cell is not independent of John Stevens, but part of John Stevens. It is not the full John Stevens, but it has no other identity than John Stevens, so, to say we are in Christ, and we live ‘as Christ’ is not saying we are the Christ, that would be blasphemous, as well as ridiculous, but that, by virtue of being ‘in Christ’, we participate in and exhibit Christ’s life. We do all things ‘in His name’ just as all my cells do everything ‘in my name’.
‘…the church…is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all’ Ephesians 1v22,23
Therefore, it is perfectly correct to say that, since we are in Christ, and Christ is in me, we are ‘as Christ’ in the world; Christ is incarnated in all who are in Christ. C.T. Studd, a missionary to Africa in the late 1800s and early 1900s, famously said: ‘I want to see Jesus running about in thousands of black bodies and purified hearts.’
As a child, I learnt how to sink in water. I couldn’t swim. Much as I tried to copy the arm movements of others my body headed down not along
Christ in our form, ‘as us’ is how the New Testament sees us individually in the world and corporately in His body, the church, the body of Christ.
In the first century, not long after the resurrection, believers earned the nickname ‘Christians’ meaning ‘little Christs’; meant, at best, as a nickname and, at worse, a derogatory insult but it is a profound truth.
Point 3 Going on to maturity
As a child, I learnt how to sink in water. I couldn’t swim. Much as I tried to copy the arm movements of others my body headed down not along.
What was wrong? The water? Had I lost my buoyancy? No.
Somewhere along the line, I learnt to trust that the water would hold me up. It was a shift from fear to faith. Moving on from fear to faith in various areas of life is transforming. No more so than with Christ.
Many do not believe they can live the Christian life, riddled as we are with imperfections, weaknesses, fears, ambitions, and sin. But when we shift to ‘seeing’ that it is Christ who holds us up, and that, for His life to manifest itself in our experience, is not dependent on our efforts but His life alone, we can make progress.
Now, I can swim. If you threw me into the sea, I would not sink but float. Am I an Olympic standard swimmer? No. In fact, I am a very limited swimmer, but I can swim, and if I had lessons and practiced, I would undoubtedly improve.
It is the same in the Christian life.
We have to learn to switch from relying on our inner resources as if we can live independently of Christ and learn to ‘walk in the Spirit’ as the New Testament calls it. In other words, we live life from the starting point of communion between our new spirits and the Holy Spirit (see Article 1).
When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth it had several moral faults: sexual immorality, social class distinctions, and competing factions are mentioned in his letters. In his analysis of how this could have occurred, amongst believers, he wrote:
‘I could not write to you as spiritually mature but as fleshly, as babies in Christ…you are still fleshly…and are behaving like mere men.’ 1 Cor 3v1-4
Fleshly, or carnal, as in some translations, here means they were genuine believers, but imitating ‘mere men’ i.e. those without Christ living in them; living according to their soulish abilities to think, feel, and act. He compared this to being like a baby, they hadn’t learnt to live and grow by a spirit-Spirit communion, to be led by the Holy Spirit.
To the Hebrews, the same problem is encountered:
‘Though by this time you should be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary lessons…you need milk, not solid food…solid food belongs to the mature…let us go on to maturity’ Heb 5v12-14; 6 v1
We are all disciples and learners. We all have L-plates.
Conclusion
Christ as us, Christ in our form?
Just as it requires faith in water to hold you up before you can swim, we must believe Christ is living His life in us and therefore ‘as us’.
We are all disciples and learners. We all have L-plates.
If the Apostle Paul needed time for God to reveal the mystery of ‘His Son in me’ or ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’, maybe we do? But once it has been revealed – for example take Galatians 2v20 – we can begin to ‘swim’ and become more accustomed to thinking of ourselves as ‘little Christs’ not relying on our ability to mimic Christ’s life, but for Christ Himself to live out his life as us, in our form.
New Testament Greek: ἐν Χριστῷ translated as ‘In Christ’ – what does ‘in Christ’ mean?
In April 2016, you may remember, Archbishop Justin Welby, revealed that he had recently discovered that his biological father was not Gavin Welby, his mother’s husband.
In his press statement, he explained that, although the news came as a great surprise, ‘I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.’
As I listened to his steady voice and calm manner as he read out his statement, I wondered what those listening made of the phrases ‘who I am in Jesus Christ’ and ‘my identity in him.’ Christian poetic jargon? Ecclesiastical psychobabble? An awkward way of simply saying ‘as a Christian’?
‘I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.’
And, maybe, for those whose church-attending ears are more attuned to New Testament phraseology, ‘in Christ’ is a familiar phrase often quoted by St Paul and inferred by Jesus. ‘In Christ’ or ‘in Jesus Christ’ is mentioned over 160 times in the New Testament. But, even among churchgoers, is this simply a phrase devoid of any greater meaning than ‘a Christian believer?’
Two hymns ‘In Christ Alone’ (written in 2001) and Charles Wesley’s ‘And Can It Be?’ (1738) repeat the phrase and are popular still in churches today.
But what does the two-word phrase ‘in Christ’ mean? What picture does it paint?’
Jesus also used very similar phraseology:
‘Abide in me and I in you’ John 15v4; ‘The Spirit dwells with you, and will be in you’ John 14 v 17, ‘As You, Father, are in me, and I in you…may they be one just as we are one: I in them and You in me’ John 17 v 22,23
Paul also talks of the Israelites being ‘baptised into Moses’ (1 Cor 10v2) and of Christian believers being ‘baptised into Christ Jesus’ (Rom 6v3) and believers former state of being ‘in Adam’ (1 Cor 15v21)
To explore the phrase ‘in Christ’ I am using three pictures (i) the container (ii) the inheritor (iii) blotting paper.
Picture 1 The Container
Tools in a box, passengers on a bus, members of a team
The tools are contained in the toolbox and go where the box goes, as do the passengers and the members of the team. So, this picture ‘works’ in the sense that the Israelites, having chosen to follow Moses into the desert, or believers having chosen to follow Christ go where Moses in the Old Testament or Christ leads. Or, if a more static picture is envisaged believers in Christ are positioned where He is, spiritually speaking, contained ‘in Him’.
This picture works quite well for ‘in Christ’ but not so well for ‘Christ in you’. If Jesus is Lord then we follow, He doesn’t follow us, so ‘Christ in you’ could suggest He goes where you lead.
More doctrinally, this phrase is impossible to marry with ‘substitutionary’ atonement.
Jesus died on the cross for us, in our place. The sinless died for sinners. It was a sacrifice that cost everything, the price was paid in His blood to reconcile us to God. God’s wrath was poured out on Christ, not us. He was a substitute. A simple illustration that is often used is of a law court. The guilty person in the dock is awaiting the judge and the sentence. The sentence is the death penalty. All looks lost until we find the judge acquitting the guilty, someone else having died in their place.
Paul summarises this in Romans 5v8,9
‘God demonstrates His own love for us – while were sinners Christ died for us…and acquitted (or justified) us by His blood’
The problem with ‘substitutionary’ atonement isn’t that it is untrue. It is true. We can say that Chrost’s death and his blood atoned for our sins. Wonderfully true. Once you ‘see it’, that Christ took all our sins and died in our place, and can say ‘Christ died for me’, you know you are forgiven and have been reconciled to God. A relationship of love has begun.
The problem isn’t that it isn’t true, the problem is that it is incomplete.
The guilty defendant is released. He has no criminal record. It’s all been wiped, a clean slate. But the defendant’s nature has not changed. We are left with, as many say, ‘we are sinners saved by grace’ but how can Christ have sinners contained ‘in Hm’ and how can sinners have ‘Christ’ living in them? It doesn’t fit, it doesn’t marry.
Many square the circle by saying ‘Christ in me, the hope of glory’ (Col 1v27) gives me faith that I can be changed, transformed, sanctified, and become more like Christ. Changed from the inside-out. Or even, to quote John the Baptist, ‘I must decrease, that He may increase’.
This is the logical conclusion of the gospel being viewed through substitutionary atonement alone.
The sinner may be ‘covered over with a robe of righteousness’ (Is 61v10) so that when God looks at me, He doesn’t see me but Christ’s righteousness covering me, but the sinner is still a sinner, he or she has not had their essential sinful nature changed.
The problem with ‘substitutionary’ atonement isn’t that it is untrue. It is. But it is incomplete. It is half the story.
Lastly, the limitation of this picture, of tools in a box, is either that there is ‘Christ in me’ a small Christ, contained in a large me, or ‘in Christ’ a small me contained in a large Christ. The tool is not organically joined to the toolbox or the passengers on the bus to the bus. And yet the New Testament speaks of us ‘abiding in Christ’ or being ‘one with Christ’. This picture, therefore is of limited usefulness, it helps us in terms of destiny but not relationship.
Conclusion: Picture 1 The Container is an inadequate interpretation of being ‘in Christ’ or ‘Christ in me’ and cannot be married to substitutionary atonement’ because substitutionary atonement is an incomplete gospel.
Picture 2 The Inheritor
This, I would argue is far closer to what Jesus, Paul and other NT writers meant by the phrase ‘in Christ’ or ‘Christ in you’.
If we were ‘in Adam’, we inherit Adam’s sinful nature, we are ‘sinners’ by nature and so we sin, if the Israelites are ‘in Moses’ they inherit everything that was given by God to Moses i.e. the Law, and the spiritual food and drink referred to in 1 Cor 10. Similarly, if believers are now ‘in Christ’ they stand to inherit everything in Christ: His holiness, His righteousness, His eternal life, His limitless power over sin, His riches.
This inheritance, it can be argued, is part and parcel of the New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus’ death on the cross and His blood. Another translation for ‘covenant’ is ‘testament’ as in a person’s Last Will and Testament.
After the last supper with his disciples, Jesus raised a cup and said: ‘this cup is the New Covenant in My blood, shed for you’ Luke 22v20.
To quote the last verse of Charles Wesley’s great hymn, And Can It Be:
No condemnation now I dread Jesus, and all in Him is mine! Alive in Him, my living Head, And clothed in righteousness divine, Bold I approach the eternal throne
Conclusion: Picture 2 is an improvement on Picture 1 but ignores the underlying issue – the incomplete nature of the gospel viewed through substitutionary atonement which fails to explain how we can ‘move house’ from Adam to Christ.
Picture 3 Blotting Paper
Before we look at the blotting paper picture it is important to see how scripture solves the conundrum of moving from Adam to Christ.
This can be done in two steps. Firstly to take a look at the details of the New Covenant and find out what is promised as our inheritance once we’re in Christ. And, secondly, to complete the gospel, to go further in our appreciation of what God achieved for us through Christ’s death on the cross.
(i) The New Covenant
The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all prophesied that God would bring in a New Covenant (New Testament) to replace the Old Covenant (Old Testament). The old covenant formed by God initially with Abraham (see Genesis 12 and 15) and built on through Moses needed to be replaced:
‘See, the day is coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Judah and the house of Judah not like the covenant…which they broke even though I was like a husband to them…this is the covenant I will make…I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts…’ Jeremiah 31 v 31-34 / Hebrews 8 v 7-12
‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My ways’ Ezekiel 36 v 26-27 / Ezekiel 11v19
When Jesus took the cup and announced that the New Covenant would be inaugurated through the shedding of His blood not many hours after the Last Supper, He was referring to these prophetic announcements made hundreds of years before the events of that Passover meal with His disciples.
No longer were the people of God, Israel, bound to God through their attempt to keep the Law of Moses as inscribed on tablets of stone. Now God will come as a heart surgeon:
1. Remove our stony hearts 2. Replace our hearts with a new fleshy heart 3. Give us a new spirit 4. Come and live in us by His Spirit
And this was all to be achieved through Christ on the cross that Jesus knew lay ahead of Him not many hours after raising the cup after supper and saying: ‘this is the new covenant in My blood’.
(ii) Substitutionary and Inclusive
We have seen how Christ died for us, in our place, and taking the punishment we deserved on the cross. The debt paid at the cost of His own life, through His blood. This is substitutionary atonement.
But the New Testament goes further than this in its disclosure of what God achieved for us through the cross.
‘Do you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…now if we died with Christ we shall, also live with Him…’ Romans 6 v 3-8
‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I know live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who love men and gave His life for me’ Gal 2v20
‘You died and your life is hidden with Christ in God…Christ is your life’ Col 3 v 2,3
Paul makes it abundantly clear that on the cross, it wasn’t just our sins that were laid on Jesus, but us. Not just sins but sinners.
Jesus took that old Adamic you and I to the cross and nailed it there. Dead. Crucified. God achieved the death of that old Adamic nature, the old Adam, through the death of His Son.
And that through the resurrection we have been raised ‘in Him’, ‘in Christ’ with a new nature. In terms of the promised new covenant, the old Adamic stony heart is removed, replaced with a new Christ-fleshy heart, a new human spirit AND His Spirit to come and dwell in us to cause us to walk in His ways.
‘If anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’. This he said concerning the Spirit whom those believing would receive, for the Holy Spirit had not yet been given’ John 7v37-39
As Paul put it elsewhere: ‘Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come’ 2 Cor 5v17
And it is ‘of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ 1 Cor 1v30
So, Galatians 2v20 shows us that the death of Christ on the cross was not only ‘substitutionary’ – ‘He gave His life for me’ but ‘inclusive’ ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ - it includes you and me, we died on the cross with Christ.
Now we can begin to understand what the phrase ‘in Christ’ or ‘Christ in me’ meant to Paul and similar phrases meant to Jesus looking ahead to His relationship with us post-cross and resurrection.
What is the relationship between the new creation-I, the ‘in Christ-I-Christ-in me’ new creation and Christ Himself - and therefore with the Father and the Spirit? And what about how this affects my daily experience of life, my struggles with sin, temptation, the world and the devil – the forces arrayed against us? How does this affect my view of discipleship or spiritual growth?
Often what we need to do is remind ourselves of the terms of the new covenant. We are beneficiaries of the covenant or testament.
Under the old covenant, the Israelites and Gentiles beyond the covenants in their Adamic nature could not keep the commandments written on stone. Now, in the new covenant, His Spirit writes those laws on our new hearts. ‘True Christianity’ is a Spirit-spirit operation. It is more like an eruption than a life of self-regulation. The life of the Spirit erupts from within.
Jesus put it like this:
‘If anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’. This he said concerning the Spirit whom those believing would receive, for the Holy Spirit had not yet been given’ John 7v37-39
The heart of the matter is a communion, between the Holy Spirit and our new spirit.
‘The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God’ Romans 8 v 16
‘If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he is not His’ Romans 8 v 9
‘The love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us’ Romans 5 v 14
‘As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God’ Romans 8 v 1
In many passages, especially in the Acts of the Apostles, we see how believers are spoken to, guided, warned, and empowered by the Spirit.
One example:
‘As they ministered to the Lord and fasted the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart Barnabus and Saul to Me for the work to which I have called them’’ Acts 13v2
This is solid reality. This is the new covenant in operation. This is the relationship, the communion, of God with His new creations in Christ Jesus.
Blotting Paper?
Put blotting paper on ink or pour ink on blotting paper and the result is the same, the ink is absorbed by the paper and if you magnify the fibres of the botting paper you’ll see the ink has soaked into the fibres themselves. It is not possible to say where one starts and the other begins. They are in a state of intimate union.
But this union can only be achieved if the paper is plunged into the ink. This is the meaning of ‘baptism’ or ‘bapteizo’ in Greek. To plunge under. Clothes are dyed by plunging them under the liquid dye.
In the New Testament there are three main baptisms. None mention water. They are baptisms into a person.
Firstly, God plunges us into Christ and, as we have seen therefore into Christ’s death, then to be raised in Christ as a new creation. But first the crucifixion of the old man, and the burial.
‘Do you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…now if we died with Christ we shall, also live with Him…’ Romans 6 v 3-8
Those of us who are more church-familiar have a problem. It’s the ticking clock you cannot hear, consigned to the background. It is the same with the familiarity of biblical vocabulary. We have been plunged into Christ. This is a radical statement.
We have been plunged into Christ. This is a radical statement.
Firstly ‘Christ’ means ‘Messiah’ which in turn means ‘the anointed one’ so rewriting this we find that we – mostly Gentile believers – have been plunged into the Messiah, the one promised to the Jews. We often refer to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, he was born a Jew. But Isaiah and other prophets were constantly reminding the Jews of their ultimate purpose ‘I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness…and as a light to the Gentiles’ Is 42v6.
There is no mention of water in this passage.
Secondly, Jesus baptises us in the Spirit. Plunges us into the Holy Spirit.
John the Baptist prophesied: ‘I baptise you with water, but One mightier than I is coming…He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit’ Luke 3v16
Jesus referred to this after the resurrection when speaking to the disciples:
‘John truly baptised with water, but you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’ Acts 1 v 5
This was fulfilled 10 days later, on the Day of Pentecost:
‘When the day of Pentecost had fully come…they were all filled with the Holy Spirit…’ Acts 2v 1-4
The New Covenant had dawned but notice that Jesus plunged them into the Holy Spirit, there is no mention of water in this passage.
Lastly, thirdly, the Holy Spirit baptises us into the body of Christ:
‘By one Spirit we were all baptised into one body…and been made to drink one Spirit…the body of Christ…’ 1 Cor 12v 12-27
Again, there is no mention of water.
The picture is now complete. There is a union between God and the believer. It turns out that we are ‘containers’ of Christ in us. But the ‘us’ has been redefined through the death and resurrection of Christ. The new ‘Christ-in-me’ creation is fused; the new spirit with the Holy Spirit. As new creations in Christ, we inherit all that God has done in and through Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification. And, lastly, we are not only fused as one with Christ but with all other believers in what the New Testament calls the body of Christ: ‘now you are the body of Christ and members individually’ 1 Cor 12 v 27. That union isn’t like two magnets joined together, distinct yet attracted. Whilst Christ has indeed ascended to glory, and we are on the earth the union is via the spirit-Spirit communion. A little like a portal, joining heaven and earth.
Now it makes sense to pray ‘thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven’ as the Spirit in communion with our spirits can reveal His will which can then be accomplished on the Earth…through us.
Two points to close. Water baptism. And spiritual growth or discipleship.
Water baptism is a necessary symbolic act. Dead bodies need to be buried. When Peter stood up to preach on the day of Pentecost, the crowd that listened while others scoffed (nothing new there!) asked:
‘What shall we do?’ Then Peter said, ‘Repent and let every one of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ…and you will receive the gift of the Spirit’…then those who gladly received his word were baptised…about three thousand’ Acts 2 v 37-41
Water baptism symbolises the above three baptisms.
Discipleship and spiritual growth in Christ is not a smooth, continually upward, glorious experience of unending joy and victory for many if not all believers.
As new creations with the Holy Spirit in communion with our new spirits and new hearts the potential is there for us to exhibit the new life, the life of Christ, in this world, in the context of our families, friends, work colleagues, many others we meet, and in the context of all the ways we have lived life before the invasion of Christ. In the West, for example, there is a greater emphasis on rational thought and establishing truth via empirical evidence than in the more spiritual East. We have to unlearn the ways of our culture and learn the new ways of the kingdom of God. During Jesus’s childhood, adolescence, and as a young man he ‘grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and men’ Luke 2v52 We, now, as sons of the Father in Christ, are being called to grow in wisdom in exactly the same way. To learn to be led by the Holy Spirit not the flesh – flesh meaning our natural abilities such as our thinking, our understanding, or our emotions, or our wills, or bodily appetites. None of these things are wrong, evil, or sinful in themselves, but we have to learn who’s boss, the Holy Spirit or our flesh.
In a car, we can ignore the SatNav, but as new creations in Christ, we have to learn to hear our in-built SatNav, the voice of the Spirit, and obey His directions.
When I was 6, a friend let me borrow his bike. I didn’t have a bike and couldn’t ride one. But I was determined to learn. So, as dusk was falling, I rode his bike around and around his back garden, falling off, getting back on, falling off getting back on. By the time I had conquered it and could ride his bike, I was covered in grass stains, my legs were hurting and my wrists bruised from falling off, but I learnt.
God will never give up teaching us to live just like Jesus
God will never give up teaching us to live just like Jesus so that we, like Him, only do what we see the Father doing or speak what we hear. We may suffer all kinds of setbacks, but He is faithful. It’s all there in the New Covenant:
‘I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My ways’
John's posts and poetry is on Unless a seed Blog
