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’
Gethsemane is a complete surrender into Jesus AS our will, having already, Himself, chosen God and thus, WE ALSO. When Jesus said, three times, "Not My will, but Thine be done," I said three times, "Not my will, but Thine be done." His agony is my agony; His choice is my choice; His words are my words. My surrender is to accept my place inside of Him and the place of that surrendered One inside of me.
4. Gethsemane
Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane . . . and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me." He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done." And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. So He left them, went away again - And He knelt down and prayed - the third time - saying, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Matthew 26:36-43 and Luke 22:41-44 combined In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you in Me and I in you. Jesus' words - one hour earlier. When Jesus said, "In that day," He did not mean that someday we would be in Him and He in us; He meant that at a certain DAY in our lives, we would discover and thus know something that is true. "That day," in the gospel, is always today. "Today is THE day of salvation." "Today, if you will hear His voice." Look back at the words of Gethsemane. When Jesus says, "You in Me," I believe what He says. Should we do anything else with what He says? I was not in Him, as He traversed this dark passage, figuratively, but literally. I was not in Jesus in a metaphorical sense, but actually. Notice that He said "You IN Me and I IN you." I sit here groaning over this word, IN, as Jesus used it here, in great perplexity and agony of spirit. Do we dare to limit God; does anyone in Christendom dare to say, "Well, it certainly does NOT mean A, B, or C; it means only what my limited box-knowledge of God allows it to mean"? I am inside of every word, every moment, every action of Jesus in Gethsemane, and every word, moment and action of Gethsemane is inside of me. The words God uses to define "IN" is "FILLEDwith ALL the FULLNESS." Gethsemane is the beginning of the Covenant. We begin the Blood Covenant with God inside of Jesus in Gethsemane. Gethsemane inside of Jesus inside of us is the beginning of full Covenant Union between us and God. We "begin" full Covenant union with God by discovering - in that day you shall KNOW - that our union with Him in Gethsemane is already true. I want to insert this understanding here. I am using the tabernacle of Moses in the wilderness as a metaphor of our entering into full covenant relationship with God. God gave us that picture because it helps us to speak meaningfully about the various aspects of God's work in our lives. This metaphor, however, we apply at two different levels, always both at the same time. We see all things as finished and complete; we see that by faith. By faith I know that I already sit upon the Mercy Seat at the right hand of the Father inside of Jesus. As I see anything that crosses my path, I know that I am looking out from the throne of God; I see all things from that throne. At the same time, God applies this same metaphor to our walk into the fullness of God made visible and complete - the manifestation of the sons of God in full glory upon this earth. We will know without question when that walk is complete - our bodies will be transformed into immortality, visibly and openly. There's no faking that, nor any doubt when it happens. Thus the tabernacle shows us what we already are, and it shows us how we become what we already are. In my last letter, I stated that I do not understand why those who dwell in all the experience of the Holy Spirit will not enter into the Holy of Holies. I now understand. Outwardly, I have been saying why all along, but I understand it now for the first time. Most Christians, including those with much experience and knowledge of God, looking at the things God says about life in the Holy of Holies, are absolutely convinced that those things are speaking of "heaven." And so they have reduced grace and the gospel down to the non-Biblical idea that God has promised us that we will experience Holy-of-Holies life, that is, third-level life, in heaven. They don't mean heaven right now, as God means, they mean "go to" heaven at some future time. And that "grace" means only that we don't "earn" this "going to" heaven. So right now we are just happy and later, someday, "going to heaven" is entering the Holiest of All. Now, this much I understood. What I did not fully see is this. Paul says that we are in heaven right now - seated with Christ in the "epouranios." He says that, since we live in the Spirit, that is, in heaven, let's walk in the Spirit, that is walk in heaven, as well. What does that mean? It takes tremendous faith to walk in heaven right now, a bold and daring heart of faith and absolute confidence in our union with the Lord Jesus Christ - that what He says, all that He says, is actually true. The reason it takes tremendous faith is that we are blind; God has not yet opened our spirit-eyes to see the obvious. Therefore, every step is a step in darkness, trusting absolutely that what our Guide, the Lord Jesus, speaks, is absolutely true and trustworthy. And so again, the reason most Christians who live in the light and experience of the Holy Place, refuse to walk in the Holy of Holies right now, is that they simply do not trust Jesus. They are convinced He is speaking nonsense, and that they will know what He means and can then TRUST Him ONLY after their eyes see and they can confidently maneuver heaven on their own. In other words, they want the same self-reliance in heaven that they walk in upon the earth. Thus they have concocted the "go to" heaven fantasy, rejecting the idea that they are already there in fullness, as God says. And when they hear us speaking about the salvation of heaven revealed in all fullness through us right now in this earth, they imagine we are speaking something other than the gospel; their gospel being reduced to a full rejection of Hebrews 10:19, that we enter into the Holiest, all the life of heaven, right now in boldness and by the blood of Jesus. They are convinced that if they do not see reality, then reality cannot be real. Thus they walk by sight, having reduced faith to silly talk about happiness "in heaven," all the while refusing a heaven they live in, but cannot see right now. And so, I must say something about all the "union with Christ" teaching across the entire spectrum, and many are rejoicing in many different expressions of our discovery of union with Christ. I must say what I see, not because I want to elevate myself or put anyone down, but simply - how can I be found faithful if I do not share in the gentleness of the Lord Jesus what I see? I see so many speaking union with Christ at the door, and then speaking separation, separation, separation regarding everything of Christ beyond the door. WHY? Because they are absolutely convinced that REAL union with Christ can be known only after we "go to" heaven. And thus they draw a line through everything God says in the gospel concerning the reality of the Holy of Holies fulfilled now in and through us into this earth, convinced that we CANNOT know such union with God, not until AFTER we die and "go to" heaven. And that is why God has promised to shatter heaven. Because all of these precious dear ones can never know union with Christ in full reality as God says it in the New Testament until their white-knuckled grip on "go to" heaven fantasies is broken. And so, in the travail of the Holy Spirit in groanings inside of me, I give myself to the Lord Jesus as He shatters heaven through me, here, in Gethsemane. Many may rejoice in their present knowledge of union with Christ, and that is wonderful, I in no way speak against their joy. But they cannot walk this path of the Atonement inside of Jesus because this is an unseen path. As long as they insist the heaven they live in right now is real only when they can SEE it, then they cannot know full union with God. Why can't they know it? Unbelief, as the gospel says. Thus God must shatter our heaven fantasies before we can continue in the Atonement of Jesus revealed through us. We must place Gethsemane into context. Jesus spoke the Kingdom of God, the new creation, into existence in John chapter 17. From that moment until He sat down at the right hand of the Throne, He walked through every step of the birthing of that Kingdom. In John chapter 17, Jesus took you and me into Himself, thus establishing the gospel revealed through Paul, that Jesus did not do these things for us, as the earlier apostles had thought, but that we were in Him and He in us through every step of that path - literally and actually. The Atonement begins in Gethsemane and is finished in the Throne. The revelation of God to all creation as who and what He really is begins in Gethsemane and is made complete in the Throne. The birthing of the Kingdom begins in Gethsemane and is revealed in the Throne. Our full union with God in a Blood Covenant relationship, complete and made manifest, begins in Gethsemane and finishes in the Throne. Rebellion and the darkening of the present creation began in Adam's will. Obedience and the light of the new creation begins in Jesus' will. Just as it was the will of the human that spoke the words that opened the Gate into the knowledge of Jesus as Savior, and just as it was the will of the human that spoke the words that opened the Door into the knowledge of Jesus as Baptizer, so it is the will of the human that speaks the words that opens the Veil into the knowledge of Jesus as our very and only Life. Yet it is not our human will by which we spoke those words, but His. Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you." Thus, for us, Gethsemane is NOT, "Obey God, loser, do His will and not your own." Gethsemane is not something we "copy" in an outward way, though God gives us the words to speak. In complete contrast, Gethsemane is a complete surrender into Jesus AS our will, having already, Himself, chosen God and thus, WE ALSO. When Jesus said, three times, "Not My will, but Thine be done," I said three times, "Not my will, but Thine be done." His agony is my agony; His choice is my choice; His words are my words. My surrender is to accept my place inside of Him and the place of that surrendered One inside of me. This point is the turning of the Covenant. Everything that comes after, the trial, the crucifixion, even the resurrection, all of it flows out of this moment. We entered the Outer Court by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we entered into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Savior - the Way - was found in us. We entered the Holy Place by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we entered into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Baptizer - the Truth - was found in us. In just the same way, we enter the Holy of Holies by faith, by asking, by receiving, and by believing that we have received. In so doing we enter into that level of the knowledge of God freely, and all that is found in Jesus the Fulfiller - the Life - is found in us. Gethsemane is the Gate, the Door, the Veil. Three times Jesus said, "Not My will, but Thine be done." Three times we said those words inside of Him. Three times we enter into a deeper place of knowing God. Jesus said, "Take this cup away from Me." What is that cup? We dare not fall short of the glory of God in our answer to that question; we are speaking of the Becoming One. Paul's gospel is radical and most Christians have never known it. Yes, many Christians can mouth the concepts of Paul's gospel - Jesus became our sin that we might be the righteousness of God. Dead in Christ, buried with Christ, risen with Christ, seated in heaven now in Christ. Yet these things are little more than theological talking points. Why? Because Paul's gospel is too radical to actually believe, that is, to make it personal and here and now. And so for most, the sacrifice of Jesus is something God did for us - that's how the other disciples understood it before Paul preached his revelation of Christ, and that's how most of the church sees it. Then, in the latter rain outpouring, came a vision of our place in that same Atonement, only it was seen in this way, that Jesus is our Pattern, and that we ourselves must follow the same path, we must choose God, we must enter full crucifixion ourselves, and so on, and that God will "help" us follow Jesus' pattern. Yet this view remained entirely inside the rebellion and separation of Adam. Let me give a different view of the path of the Atonement beginning here in Gethsemane. Let me give a view of the cup Jesus drank, a view that comes out from the Holy of Holies, a third feast view, a third level view. In the upper room, in Jesus' prayer in John 17, Jesus did something radical, something God. Jesus reached forward and back, He extended Himself out to all things, and He drew all things, that is, you and me, into Himself, literally and actually. It does no good for us to contemplate the "all things" part, what we must know is, the "you and me" part. But including you and me into Himself was only one side of the equation. You see, Jesus said we would know three things. We would know that He is in the Father. We would know that we are in Him - that's the first side of the equation. But He said also that we would know that He is in us. We became the Jesus who walked through the Atonement, and the Jesus who walked through the Atonement became us as we walk through our appointed times in this present age. Jesus took His shattered creation into Himself, that He might carry it all the way to the Father, AND Jesus became His shattered creation that He might walk it all the way to the Father. Jesus had already taken us into Himself before He entered Gethsemane and wept over the cup His Father asked Him to drink. It was His joy to take us into Himself. Yet the transition must be complete - God would complete it upon the cross. Jesus must become us. Jesus must become all the darkness and difficulty of our path. He became our sin and took it into death upon the cross; He must become us that He might take us into life upon the throne. Jesus was not drinking three twenty-four-hour days of difficulty; He drank three one-thousand-year days of difficulty. Jesus agreed to become me. And He asks me to accept Him as myself. He asks me to stop "choosing" between "His way" and "my way" - that is the rebellion of Adam. He asks me to sink utterly into Him and to see Him alone in all things I find in me. He asks me for the most complete surrender I have ever known. Let's do that here. Let's follow the pattern. We know how we passed through the Gate into the Outer Court. We know how we passed through the Door into the Holy Place. The Veil into the Holy of Holies is no different. Let's ask. "Lord Jesus, I ask You to be my life, to be all that I am, all that I find myself to be in this world. I ask You to be the end of whatever "I" of me that once existed before I knew You. I will never look at or consider that former "I" again. Lord Jesus, I ask you to be me, the present me, walking through all the difficulties and ineptitude of my life in this world. I ask you to be all of my failures, all of my short-comings, all of my down-fallings. I cannot carry myself, Lord Jesus. I have tried and I have failed. Forgive me, Lord, for trying to be Christ-like. I give You my permission, Lord Jesus, to be me, to be all of me as myself. "And, Lord Jesus, I ask You to be me as Yourself. I ask You to be me, to be my life as the King of Glory, as the Risen and Ascended Christ, as the Living and Ever-Coming Son of God. "Lord Jesus, forgive me for ever saying, "Maybe someday, I'd like to be"; forgive me, Lord. From this moment on, I will say only, "I am." I am the firstfruits unto God. I am the manifestation of the sons of God. I am the manchild caught up to God's throne. I am the second witness of Christ. I am the Mercy-Seat. I am the throne of heaven. I am the revelation of God. "Lord Jesus, I am just like You, for You and I are one. All that I am in this present world, You are, and all that You are, the Son of God, I am. You are my breath, You are my life, You are my every moment. "And Lord Jesus, having asked You to be me, to be my very life, I believe that I receive all that I ask for. I walk forward expecting that I am filled with all the fullness of God. I walk forward expecting that rivers of living water flow out of my belly. I walk forward expecting that kingdoms of darkness are falling into ruin all around me. I walk forward KNOWING that in my weakness, in all of my glorious weakness, Your strength is proven, Your strength is MADE perfect. For You, Lord Jesus, are strong enough to drink the Cup, the precious Cup, Your Father gave You. You are strong enough to become me." If you have prayed this prayer, not necessarily my words, but yours, in your own intimate knowing of Jesus inside of you, if you have prayed this prayer in sincerity of heart before God, in the Spirit who alone gives you power to believe what God says, then turn around. Your way into the Father is complete. You are now seated upon the Mercy Seat. You are the Ark, the carrier, the embodiment of the Covenant. As you look out upon an entirely different-looking world, you see through the Veil you just passed. To your astonishment, it was always wide open. And now you are looking out, first you see your precious brethren in the Holy Place, then you see your precious brethren in the outer court, then you see all the people of this world, then you see all creation, heaven and earth. God is in you reconciling the world to Himself. And every moment of your life, all your joys and sorrows, all your triumphs and failures, all your doing well and doing badly, all of it is the Intercession of God, the Lord Jesus, inside of you, reconciling all creation to Himself. From this moment on, not one moment of your life is your "redemption." It is finished. Every moment of your life now is mission, it is sending; it is Jesus Christ whom God has sent. Every moment of your life is now the revelation of God into this world. Every moment of your life is God Himself proving Himself through you to His creation. But, in spite of our unlimited view of all things out from God's throne, what is it we see first? What part of God's reality is closest to our eyes? The Altar of Incense, and all of our precious brethren, close to our hearts, who labor there. And suddenly we know that, having passed through Gethsemane inside of Jesus, now, Gethsemane passes through us. For there, right in front of us, is the precious Woman of God, caught in the jaws of the dragon. And now we must KNOW this Atoning One, this Becoming One who is our very life. Let us look upon Him, this Revelation of the Person and Nature and Being of the Father as He walks the Path of Revelation. The upper room is not far from the east side of the city of Jerusalem. It is a short walk from there down to the bottom of the sharp cleft below the eastern wall of the city in which runs the brook Kidron. It is April, so the brook is running water, though small. Jesus and the disciples cross over the brook and immediately begin climbing the steep slope of the Mount of Olives, higher than Jerusalem to the east. Gethsemane is a little garden in a flat and sheltered spot among the olive trees part way up that slope. By the time they reach the garden, Jesus is already laboring under unfathomable pain. From the moment Jesus steps across the Brook Kidron, all demonic realms assault Him with all the fury of their madness. Remember, in the midst of the storm, Jesus slept. When they tried to stone Him to death, He just walked through their midst and they did not even notice. He is the unflappable One. Yet here, He is unflappable no more. Sorrow deeper than anything known by man before or since grips His soul. Death mocks Him, and He stumbles under its terror. Two-and-a-half hours of praying, three times of surrendering Himself to God, and still, it gets worse. An angel shows himself, a cherub of the throne, putting his arm around this very broken Man. Yet the agony only increases until blood flows out of His pores. Jesus did not do this "for us." We were there, utterly and actually, inside of Him. Yet the darkest moment of internal torment, of unmitigated demonic assault inside of Jesus, comes shortly before it ends. After three hours, the internal assault simply ceases. Now the external assault begins, a demonic fury never manifested through men before or since as it shows itself through the next few hours. As Jesus rises from prayer, the first thing He sees is His friend, his brother, this one who has walked with Him, laughed with Him, eaten with Him, now filled with Satan - possessed by the person of Satan, not by his demons. Jesus rises from Gethsemane into the jaws of the dragon. Jesus' friend kisses Him on the cheek. And all of His other friends run in terror as far and as fast as they can in the darkness. Mark is there, following from a distance; he runs away stark naked. Jesus is alone. And the beating begins. At first it's just the soldiers of the High Priest. But all the demons of the Abyss are there as well, and so the men who mock Jesus, mock Him at the core and center of Christ, the revelation of God. "Prophesy! Who hit you? Aren't you the Christ?" Why did they hate Him? They hate Him because He is weak. They hate Him because He is only a Man. They hate Him because there is no "Super-Christ." They hate Him because He is the opposite of everything they lust after. He stands before Israel in the place of Moses, the priests of God inspecting the Passover Lamb. Again, the hard, cold fury centers on the issue of Christ. They reject utterly a Christ of flesh, a Lamb who lays down His life, who becomes them. They will not have a God of weakness. They inspect Him and find Him guilty of being one with a God whom they despise. Peter screams and curses, "Damn you; I do NOT know Him." His words pierce the center of Jesus' heart. They bind Jesus with ropes. They do not have the authority to kill Him; the Romans tore that authority away from them and they dare not challenge the Romans who are more than willing to bloody all Jerusalem and to desecrate the temple if they have to. Pilate's citadel is on the north side of the temple wall, higher than the temple and thus looking down into it. The Jews will not enter that citadel; therefore Pilate must come out to them. But it is some distance from the court of the Sanhedrin to Pilate's court. While they push Jesus before them, Judas, empty now, and horrifically alone, comes weeping back to the remaining priests. They laugh at him; he goes out in black despair and hangs himself. Jesus knows. Pilate comes out and looks down at the Jews. Suddenly he knows that there is something terribly wrong with the universe. They bring Jesus up to Him. "I find no fault with this man," he says. But he wants nothing to do with the hellish fury he sees before him, so he sends Jesus to Herod. Herod is a playboy. Herod is the life of the party. Herod makes everyone laugh. "Oh, goodie, do a miracle for me. I'd just love to see a miracle." Everyone laughs. Jesus is silent. Back to Pilate. Let me give you what are supposedly Pilate's own words as written in the government accounts required by all Roman governors. Whether this is actually Pilate's writing, as I read it now, I doubt. Facts of Christian knowledge and ideas gathered over centuries are all cobbled together in this account. However, it does give the picture I want to draw and so I will include a portion here.
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Jesus was dragged before the High Priest and condemned to death . . . Caiaphas . . . sent his prisoner to me to confirm his condemnation and secure his execution . . . Soon my palace assumed the aspect of a besieged citadel. Every moment increased the number of malcontents. . . All Judea appeared to be pouring into the city . . . By this time the marble stair groaned under the weight of the multitude. The Nazarene was brought back to me. I proceeded to the halls of justice, followed by my guard, and asked the people in a severe tone what they demanded. . . "Crucify him! Crucify Him!" cried the relentless rabble. The vociferations of the infuriated mob shook the palace to its foundations. I then ordered Jesus to be scourged, hoping this might satisfy them; but it only increased their fury. I then called for a basin, and washed my hands in the presence of the clamorous multitude, thus testifying that in my judgment Jesus of Nazareth had done nothing deserving of death; but in vain. It was his life these wretches thirsted for. Often in our civil commotions have I witnessed the furious anger of the multitude, but nothing could be compared to what I witnessed on this occasion. It might have been truly said that all the phantoms of the infernal regions had assembled at Jerusalem. The crowd appeared not to walk, but to be borne off and whirled as a vortex, rolling along in living waves from the portals of the praetorium even unto Mount Zion, with howling screams, shrieks, and vociferations such as were never heard in the seditions of the (Pandemonium), or in the tumults of the forum. (The Archko Volume, 138-141)
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In the garden, only Satan himself appeared to Eve as a serpent, a solitary and fairly quiet creature in the beauty of Paradise. In Jerusalem, Satan appeared in Jesus' friend, and all the angels fallen from heaven possessed all the people Jesus came to save, His people, possessed them with all the fury of rebellion and separation from God, all the vomit of the abyss. Man and Satan together scream, "Crucify him!" Then the physical pain begins again. They strip Jesus, scourging Him until his back is strips of flesh and visible bones. They press a crown of thorns upon Him and pluck out His beard until His face is a bloody and mangled pulp. They mock Him. They drive Him forward, placing a cross upon His back. Passing through the crowds of people lining the way, screaming their fury at Him, He stumbles and falls. This Jesus, this One who is weak, He is no Christ for us. We will not have a God revealed through weakness. Give us power; give us miracles; give us thunderbolts; but the very last God we will accept is a Man who lays down His life, who does not fight back. It is not my purpose to replicate The Passion of the Christ, and so I will go no further. It is my purpose to unveil for us Man as God revealed. This is the One whom we are in, and this is the One who is in us. Christianity would teach us that it was our sin that "did this" to Jesus, that we were "there inside that crowd." NO WE WERE NOT!!! But we were there, all right; we were there inside of Him. Let's return to the Covenant. In the Covenant, God's concern is ours and our concern is His. God looks out for our concern while we look out for His concern. We give no thought to our concerns, not because they are unimportant - but because God holds every tiny concern we have inside His heart and He meets each concern more wondrously than we can think or even imagine. At the same time, the One who is our Life - He carries in Himself God's concerns, and in us, He expresses those concerns. That is, He is our embracing of all the concerns and interests of God. KNOWING that God utterly has our back, we take up God's back. And when we say, "WE," we mean Jesus, for we never separate ourselves from Him nor He from us. And here, sitting upon the throne of God, looking out as the expression of the Heart and Concern of God, we see the woman filling the Holy Place, a woman clothed with the sun, a woman in travail. Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:13-17 These words are not for "figuring out" in any way, shape, or form. These words are Spirit and they are Life. Think - sitting upon the Mercy Seat, looking out with the eyes of God - the first thing we see is our precious brethren in the Altar of Incense, in the Holy Place, who have not yet entered into the Holy of Holies. The angel told John that the Outer Court is not now being measured by the measurement of Christ, only the Holy Place. That is not a put-down; each one will come in his or her season. The King James says, "And they shall nourish her there." We are the "THEY." The Bowels of God long over the Bride of Christ, right now upon this earth in the year of our Lord, 2012. He longs over her as she enters her hour of trial, not understanding a thing about what is happening to her. This is the God who fills us, who has made Covenant with us to accomplish His purposes in creation. Let me fix our eyes on this one point. The God of the Covenant will nourish His woman through you and through me and He will do it in the face of the serpent. It is here, at the point of the Word God speaks, of a woman in travail, and the face of the serpent that God shows Himself as He really is. – Through us. Believe in Jesus!
John's posts and poetry is on Unless a seed Blog
