His Kingdom in the World
The incarnation is the foundation of Kingdom life. The son of God was incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth. This same Jesus is incarnated in you.
It is in Jesus that we are one substance with God and in whom we hang together with God and in whom God is woven into our being.
Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, ‘He (Jesus) became what we are that He might make us what He is.’ Jesus was not religious. He was a son. He lived neither out of religion or out of the law. He lived from His Father. Jesus was God and the Spirit of sonship in person.
So what does ‘Become what He is’ mean. In Christ we do not become God. We become sons of God – in the sonship of Jesus Christ.
Sonship is an inheritance of unlimited splendour and glory. We have always been the sons of God since creation. Yet the atonement reveals that sonship is much more than connection and position. The prodigal son illustrates that we can be sons who are not one with Father and that Father yearns for that oneness to be renewed and real.
ACTUAL DAUGHTERS/SONS
The words, ‘Now we are the sons of God’ have a meaning and agency following the resurrection of Jesus that they did not have before the cross. This is actually a closer relationship with God than Adam and Eve enjoyed before the fall. In Christ we are woven into God, which means we belong as daughters and sons with the trinity and we have the relationship with Father that Jesus has with Father.
REAL FELLOWSHIP
Our fellowship with the trinity is real. They are individual persons yet one God. The work of fiction entitled The Shack reveals the truth of a real fellowship with a real triune God. As ever, it is the religious that are most affronted by The Shack. It offends the attachment to abstraction. Keep in mind that it is religion that is most offended by ‘life to the full.’ Why this is so we do not know but it is the mystery of iniquity.
MYSTERIOUS REALITY
The love and grace of the atonement is also a mystery that defies logic. Nevertheless it is a reality in which can rejoice. Thomas Torrance wrote, “If I did not believe in the cross, I could not believe in God. The cross means that, while there is no explanation of evil, God himself has come into the midst of it in order to take it upon himself, to triumph over it, and deliver us from it.”
Along with Jesus we promote unlimited life in these posts. We are impatient with ‘gospels’ that restrict life for the sake of ‘vested interests.’
JOINED TO GOD IN FULLNESS
The incarnation is all that law-worship is not. Much has written on the incarnation in these posts because it is the fullness of God in us and with us.
By incarnating Himself into our life in Palestine God made us one with Himself and Himself one with us forever. Jesus life and cross were incarnation and at-one-ment. This life is ours in the Spirit of Sonship – the Fatherhood of God infused and manifest in His daughters and sons.
You can be a notional son in the law. You are a son in spirit and truth in the incarnation. Your real inheritance is not participation in a belief system or moral code. It’s participation in God.
OMEGA OF THE ALPHA
Torrance observes, “It is not atonement that constitutes the goal and end of that integrated movement of reconciliation but union with God in and through Jesus Christ in whom our human nature is not only saved, healed and renewed but lifted up to participate in the very light, life and love of the Holy Trinity.” (1)
Sons of God are a manifestation of God. This real life and authentic holiness.
NOT A RELIGIOUS LIFE
God is in each of us and with us where we are. God is never somewhere else and we are never separated from God. Our oneness is in Christ and our lived oneness is to live from this fact rather than attempt to earn what we already have or erect substitutes for the living unadulterated presence that is Christ our life and the trinity in us.
(1) Morrison, Stephen D.. T. F. Torrance in Plain English (Plain English Series Book 2) (p. 195). Beloved Publishing, LLC. Kindle Edition.
CHRIST IN YOU 