The institutional Church, at large, has been fearful that an emphasis on the subjective relationship of Christ and the Christian would impinge upon the basic foundations of Christian thought.
But even more than this concern for ideological preservation has been their concern for ecclesiastical preservation. The tendencies to collectivization and objectification in the Western Church have allowed the ecclesiastical authorities to exercise power, maintain control, and "keep a handle on" the Christian enterprise.
To allow the grace of God to function freely and subjectively in Christian individuals has been eschewed as a "risky business," allowing for too much individualism, too much subjectivism, and too much personal freedom. Whatever happened to faith, or spirit led?
The "good news" of the Christian gospel is that God in Christ is reinvested and restored in, as, and through the receptive Christian individual. The objective of the gospel is not to formulate an orthodox belief-system, nor to construct and maintain an ecclesiastical organization. The Spirit of Christ is free to express the character of Christ in novel and spontaneous ways in each Christian, and that unto the glory of God. The Holy Spirit must not be imprisoned in church structures, encased in book-interpretations, or relegated only to a judicial courtroom in the heavens. The Spirit of the living Christ is present in the Christian, existing as the identity of the Christian, and functioning to express Himself through the Christian. The documentation of these realities is the objective of this article.
This classic example of our passion for the freedom of the Spirit in wisdom. The massive void which exists limiting and regulating the powerful work of God the Spirit, in an ongoing manner in the life of believer and reducing it; has led short falls and unanswered crooss over fromthe natural to the supernatural which Christ lived out and he stated that we to would be empowered by the Spirit often has becme little more than a series of how to books and trend following instead. Thanks to and for those fine truths. I agree fully , regaining the way is what we have done and set out to do ask others it;s time to do so.
Getting back to Jesus Chirst.
Despite the attempts of Protestantism to objectify the benefits of Christ's work in an almost paranoid aversion to anything other than "alien righteousness," there have been evangelical Christians throughout the ages who have understood that the Person and work of Jesus Christ must not be only extrinsically applied, but that the living Person and activity of Christ indwells the spirit of the Christian.
This fundamental reality of Christ's actual and spiritual presence within the Christian individual is so well-attested by direct New Testament references that those who "search the Scriptures" and are receptive to spiritual reality invariably recognize the indwelling presence of the living Christ.
Jesus Himself explained that He would give another Helper, the Spirit of truth, and His disciples would know that they were in Him, and He was in them (John 14:20). In His prayer for unity Jesus explained that He would be in His followers as God the Father was in Him, the Son (John 17:23).Amen!
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote: "Justification makes no actual change in us; it is a declaration of God concerning us."1 Louis Berkhof explained that both Luther and Calvin describe justification "as a forensic act which does not change the inner life of man but only the judicial relationship in which he stands to God."2 Anglo-Catholic, E. L. Mascall, notes that "justification has been envisaged as simply an act of God by which man is accounted righteous without any ontological change being made in him."3 Louis Bouyer, a French Reformed theologian who became Roman Catholic, lamented, "It was apparently impossible for Protestant theology to agree that God could put something in man that became in fact his own, and that at the same time the gift remained the possession of the Giver. That amounts to saying that there can be no real relation between God and man."4 These quotations serve to verify that the over-objectification of Protestant theology in general has effectively deterred teaching of the personal and subjective action of Christ in the Christian individual.
How than should we think? Ever wonder what rela faith looked like?
"Christ as us" is another way of referring to the Christian's "union with Christ" which has been a part of Christian understanding from the beginning of the Church. Christian thinkers have often struggled, however, to explain and articulate what Paul meant by his statement that "the one being joined to the Lord is one spirit (with Him)" (I Cor. 6:17). Likewise, they have shied away from Peter's assertion that Christians "have become partakers of divine nature" (II Peter 1:4).
Clinging to the Greek humanistic idea of an inherent "human nature," Christians have often been blinded to the Scriptural explanation that "we were by nature (Greek phusis) children of wrath" (Eph. 2:3) in our unregenerate spiritual condition, when "the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2) was indwelling and operative in us, but we are now "partakers of the divine nature (phusis)" (II Pet. 1:4), by the presence and function of "the Spirit of Christ" (Rom. 8:9) within the spirit of the Christian (cf. Rom. 8:16). Being "partakers (koinonoi) of the divine nature" (II Pet. 1:4) and "partakers (metachoi) of Christ" (Heb. 3:14) implies that Christians are participants in Christ, sharing in the commonality of His nature and identity in spiritual union with Him. This participatory fellowship (koinonia) with the living Lord Jesus (I Cor. 1:9), with God the Father (I John 1:3,6), and with the Holy Spirit (Phil. 2:1) indicates a spiritual union with the Triune Godhead.
Eastern Orthodox theologians are careful to explain, though, that neither the early church fathers nor they are advocating that the Christian becomes God. They qualify "deification" by indicating that it is participation in the "energies" of God's presence and Being, rather than becoming the "essence" of the Being of God. Though they emphasize the intimacy of the union of the Christian with the "divine nature," they maintain at the same time that the creature always remains essentially distinct from God. They maintain a careful balance of union and distinction.
Having noted how the character of Christ is expressed in Christian behavior by "the fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:22,23), we now note that the ministry of Christ is performed through us by the "gifts of the Spirit" (cf. Rom. 12; I Cor. 12; Eph. 4:8-16). The "fruit of the Spirit" has to do with the functional expression of the character of Christ, while the "gifts of the Spirit" have to do with the ministry of Christ to others in the context of the Body of Christ. It is most lamentable that in many portions of the Church today the "gifts of the Spirit" are regarded as marks of spirituality or trophies of spiritual possession, rather than as the means of Christ's ministry through Christians. The "gifts of the Spirit" should not be viewed as separated or detached entities or abilities, but only as the functional grace-expressions by which Christ ministers through any Christian in a given situation of another's need. (cf. Fowler, Charismata: the so-called "Spiritual Gifts")
No greater joy than stepping out of doubt and fear when it comes to be included in the beloved.
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