Continued from I peter

There is no aspect of the Gospel which is not in Christ. He is the mystery of God for all time in this world. He is the second Adam who accomplished everything that the first Adam did not, and he accomplished it for us so that we might become the righteousness of God.

What is that ‘becoming’ but repentance of sin and a union with the life of God? And this is possible not because we met God’s salvation with our repentance

“The experience of Creation’s insignificance before God” was a definition I have given previously for evil; see here. However, creation is not ‘insignificant’ as such as long as it exists. There must be a siginificance attached to the very fact that God has left it in existence. So le us explore a more precise understanding of evil.

It is indeed an experience of creation’s futility without God, for creation self destroys and destroys all around it when it is corrupted by evil. Why is this?

Man was created to take part in the life of the Trinity. The life of the Trinity is characterized by a reciprocal giving and receiving. The Father gives to the Son, who gives to the Spirit, who in turn serves in complete submission the Father and Son, and like wise the Son serves the Father. God is the only one who can satisfy himself. He gives that he might receive his own life back in mutual self-sacrifice. But notice that just as it is God’s nature to give so is it his nature to consume! For he consumes what he gives within himself; he satisfies himself.

So when God created man he made him to take part in this as well. This is what it means that man was created in God’s image; he bore his life of sacrificial love. Now man had something to give to God because God had given him himself! The Word, God’s Son, spoke him into existence, breathed into him the breath of life, and sustained him physically and spiritually. An man in turn worshiped God by giving him his all; his work and time and love in caring for his creation as a sacrifice unto his maker.

But in sin, we reject what God gives for the finite, the physical, the human, and so we lose this God life in us. Since it is God’s nature and therefore our nature to consume, we begin to consume ourselves and eachother; thus, death. And since it is God’s nature to consume as well, he also consumes us; he is an “all consuming fire.”

This then is evil: only part of God’s relationship. For the relationship is two-fold; it gives sacrificially and it consumes what is given. Since all things exist from God only he can satisfy and only he can be given to be consumed without being exhausted. So when evil entered the world it was the advent not of some new ‘thing’ but was rather the loss of part of the perfect nature of God, the part that receives God, and gives him back to him. And this, by the way, is love.

So when love is lost there still remains the need to consume, but since God’s life is not being given we consume ourselves. So Christ had to die to give himself to man once again, as man, and be totally consumed by God, that God might be satisfied by himself, but by a man also, that man may be brought back into his Trinitarian life.

This is why it is so serious to be ‘luke warm’ as it is stated in Revelation. Only part of God’s desired relationship with man is what sin is! Either we are all his, giving him all that he is in us, or we are consumed by him. There is no middle ground.

What does it mean to be a creationist? Does it mean that one is determined to undermine the efforts of evolution doctrine in our culture? Does it mean that we make every effort to set forth plausible scientific explanation for observable phenomena in the world and beyond that remains faithful to the formula of a six day creation and a world-wide flood? Perhaps we should be active in engaging the scientific community in debate on the discoveries and theories of science that they should themselves question their assumptions and become more objective and considerate of other theories? Being a creationist may be any and all of the above. But primarily to be a creationist one must first be a new creationist.

It is not surprising that the world holds the account of creation in Genesis to be foolish. For the account itself relates how humanity lost its communion with God, the source of all wisdom and knowledge, and became lost in the confusion of sin, albeit still functioning with a measure of reason for his life on this earth, but not in possession with a transcendent understanding of the origin of all things and the plan for all time.

How then can one know of these things? God created for his good pleasure. He did so because he had a plan for the fullness of time: to unite all things in himself, making peace. Certainly peace only had to be ‘made’ when discord was brought into the earth through sin, right? Not necessarily. For by nature of God being the Creator, he is always creating. Primarily he is creating relationship. This creation in essence is a giving of himself and his life that is reciprocated by the creation. In other words, He gives himself out of love for this is his nature; God is love. His nature is also to consume; that is part of the love, to receive and enjoy. So he creates a creation that is after his own image; that is, he gives out of love to humanity and receives back from humanity that which he has given. As humanity gives back what God gives in love, this is called worship.

How do we know this? It is revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ. In Christ the nature of God is shown to us; we see that God is three, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet he is one, for each of the three are relations in himself. Jesus came that he might give to us the fullness of divine life on the cross. He poured out his blood, not just as a man, but as God, so that he might create a perfect and holy relationship between people and God. This is the new creation. This relationship is created, and yet it is being created, or ‘renewed.’ For Paul writes to the Colossians to “put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” This renewal is by the gift of the life of Jesus to us continually. For Jesus said that he would send his spirit as a helper to us and that he is with us to the end of the age. Paul also writes to the Galatians: “Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” a rhetorical question to which the answer is a resounding no! The relationship that was created in our hearts by God’s spirit through faith, continues in the same way; by the creation in our hearts of God’s spirit through faith!

So we see that the nature of God’s creation is that he creates and continues to create in us the same relationship that he created in the beginning. What kind of relationship is this? It must be a relationship in sacrificial love. For Jesus said to his disciples “As the Father has loved me so I have loved you, abide in my love.” And Jesus explains in numerous passages that the nature of the relationship of love between him and his Father is that the Father has placed all authority into his hands and that the Father sustains him in his very life. The Son also responds in doing nothing but what the Father tells him to do and saying nothing but what the Father tells him to say. It is a reciprocal giving.

So it also is with us and Christ. As he gives to us his life in the resurrection from death, so he gives us the will and ability to worship him in spirit and in truth, that is, give back to him the things he has given and continues to give to us, his spirit according to his truth. This is the new creation, it is life, and it is done through the creation of the word incarnate, Jesus, who received his life from the father and gave it back on the cross for our sake, that uniting us both with the death and the resurrection we also might participate in this life.

Now this informs us as to the first creation. For we are told that the actions of God are foretastes of things to come. That is, the way that God works in the physical creation shows how he works in spiritual things. All creation and God’s actions in creation are a parable of his spiritual actions with humanity; they are parallel and the physical relationship points to the spiritual. And the spiritual relationship, once it is know, makes clear all that God was doing in the physical relationship.

For this reason God created in six days, rested on the seventh, and commanded his people to do likewise. The nature of God’s spiritual relationship with humanity as seen in Christ is that our entire life be a continual creation of his life in us, being breathed into us as his word is spoken and as his spirit acts in our lives, with the reoccurring theme of resting, that is, faith in his goodness and the rightness of his work that dispels all fear, anxiety and doubt. Because God didn’t just rest by his one self; firstly he is a relationship of three in one, and this relationship is seen to be dynamic and interpersonal even in himself, and secondly man and woman had already been created on day six. So God’s rest was in fact all about his relationship as it was in himself and created with his people. He provided for his people and his people rested in his provision by enjoying it. In this way they gave back to him the life that he gave–the life of love.

What then? Does it matter that Jesus died, was in the tomb for three days and then rose to give life to all people? Does it matter that God was at work six days creating and on the seventh he rested? If he is God, why did he take so long? Why wasn’t Jesus raised immediately after he died? These questions indicate a lack of understanding of the relationship. How long did it take for such thoughts to run through your head? If this is truth we are discovering why didn’t it happen immediately as God zapped it into you? Because God’s love isn’t static or machinal, it is personal and relational. What do we know of God that is not communicated to us in some way through physical things, things that are a part of the first creation? So it is important to uphold the very physical, and by nature of their physicality, time related, aspect of our relationship with God through the incarnate Christ, not letting the arrogance of our preoccupation with the human spirit to allow a theology of escapism that seeks to flee the body and only commune with that which is spirit. In this is the loss of God himself, for his is related in spirit but through creation, both the new and the old.

On the same token we cannot allow those who do not have the eyes of the spirit and can only feel as far out as they can stretch their hand, to create doubt in our minds concerning the fact that the world was created in as little as six days. In this is to also lose God himself, for he is spirit and the things of the spirit are only discerned through the eyes of the spirit. When the physical and finitely ‘certain’ is grasped to stable uncertainty concerning the nature of absolute things, we reenact the first sin of taking the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

Do I advocate scientific agnosticism for the preservation of spirituality? (Well, why not? for some plead spiritual agnosticism for the doubts raised by science.) No, but I advocate a humility that allows for uncertainty both in the spiritual and scientific realms without feeling under obligation to expain it all in a way that answers every doubters fear.

For that is in fact what motives much tedious debate; fear that one’s identity may be compromised if one’s belief is proven wrong. But in the new creation we see that our identity as sinful humans has not only been compromised, it has been crucified! So now we are in Christ and he is seated at the right hand of God, so we are also. This is our security. Let the doubter doubt and the scoffer scoff. But let the seeker come and if he truly desires to know from whence he came, and how, and why, then teach him the new creation and the answers given there to the true questions that plague his heart, those which seek to understand death and life, sin and love, dissention and unity, will answer the former. Then the first creation will be learned through the renewed eyes of its creator

What is truth but the unity of all things? There is to be observed a common destiny in all of creation, a direction that is taking this universe irrespective of individual ambitions and desires, fate, as the ancients called it. But they could only conceive of a sort of pre-programmed course that each life and thus the collective whole should follow. Truth is far more.

Is there not a consciousness among all people of good and evil? As soon as we recognize this consciousness must we not also recognize that not all agree as to what qualifies as good and what qualifies as evil? We go about our lives using these terms under the assumption that those around us will know what we mean, for in a given culture most people will generally agree on what is accepted as good and what is regarded as evil. The conflict comes when two cultures collide.

Sometimes this happens in a microcosm, that is, a smaller sample of culture. The family is a good example. Two people marry, combining their lives and futures and dreams and binding them to each other. What becomes apparent with time is that what one partner sees as ‘reasonable’ or even ‘good’ is not exactly the view of the other. Here we have two people who both agree that there is distinct good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate, but do not agree exactly on what the distinction is.

The same is at work when two religions or countries rub shoulders. This is what we observe today in the conflict between the West and the Arab world. Not only is there a difference in values, but we have one side claiming to have divine appointment to kill masses of people, while the other sees this as unequivocal evil. What to think?

The irony is that both sides are expressing a common spirituality. The one who kills is acting in outrage over views and cultural practices that are grossly offensive to God, and thus immoral. The individual is seen not as the highest dignity to be spared at all expense. Rather God is seen as the only ultimate value and all else stands or falls based on how it measures up to this standard.

The other side has a foundational value for the protection of human life. This is the overarching and absolute. (The only exception to this is when the taking of human life should somehow prevent an even greater loss of life–a position hard to define and thus the cause of much debate.)

However the common spiritual truth to be observed is that there is a standard that is above the individual. We have in us a consciousness of something so much larger and more important than just the self. And yet it is often in looking deeper in the self that we become more aware of this spirituality.

Why is this? There is in each person the knowledge of their dependence on the greater spirit that is collectively in all of us; we are inextricably bound to one another in common destiny. But what is that destiny?

Who has achieved perfect harmony? Where is to be found supreme peace? There are many sages who teach us of the path to inner peace, and many of these achieve a great degree of outward calm. Have you?

To truly exist to the fullest, to live to the fullest, one must be in perfect harmony both with oneself and with the world. For when there is discord there is not absolute being. And when one truly is in harmony with absolute being then one is at peace, for then one is where one is created to be. A person can write of such things, for she knows it to be possible, that perfect harmony and unity with all of being is what is intended, and since she has experienced a glimpse at this purpose she can write as much for the benefit of others.

But is it completely realized in her life, and more importantly, in her relationships? For that is where the rubber meets the road.

There is a common knowledge of perfect being. It is there, we know it. We need look no farther than our own heart in those quiet moments. Why does life not seem perfect? Why are you not content with the pain you have experienced in this life? Why do you not rather conclude that this is the way things are meant to be, and so they must be good? Every bone in our body screams out against this conclusion, does it not? And for good reason! There is a void in your heart that is a divine appointment. It is by this space that everything in this world is judged as inadequate to fulfill. Nothing goes. Many things promise such a perfect fit at first; marriage, wealth, meditation, health, but after trying these things have you come to the end of your search and found your peace?

Some would tell us that it’s in ourselves. But is not the void in ourselves? How then can the peace that fills the void be in our selves? Many have been successful in giving us momentary relief of the cries of ache that come from this empty void by teaching us to be silent. This is indeed a good thing, to be silent. It is an essential character of the thing the experience that fills the void. So if one can for a moment shut out all else in life and be silent, then the void too can be almost unnoticeable.

But this is a cruel deception, for life is not sitting still. Life is relationships, and as soon as we get back to real life and rub noses with our fellow humans, the ache is back. So the experience that fills the void must also be a relationship, and a perfect one.

Is there then the power in us? There is certainly the indication of what should be, there is the voice that screams “Peace exists!” There is the groan of the heart that longs for that something, but it remains as yet elusive and out of reach.

Wretched selves that we are! Who will deliver us from these bodies of death? Pessimistic you say? You tell me. Is there eternal life to be seen. I don’t mean an idea of it that you cling to and hope to experience after you die. No, there certainly is that, but do you have the peace that is divine and essentially eternal in you? For it has spoken and its call has gone out to all humanity:

The perfect self has become a man and gives himself to you. The power that bore you into existence, the ultimate being, is not austere fate, but it is personal, it is love. We all are personal and act according to personal relationships, that human energy that works in us all is not from nothing, but from the personal and relational being that brought about the existence of all things. It is his calling card that you see in yourself every time you find that moment of solitude, when the rest of the world fades into the background.

But the calling card is not him! No, he has made himself known so that you may know him. Perfect harmony became a man and in his very body there was perfect peace between the eternal human consciousness and the divine knowledge that bore it.

This divine knowledge is not static; that is, it doesn’t just sit there and say “know me.” This perfect harmony is a relationship that gives of itself in love to the fullest.

This is the only way. Think of this: what you need is to be in harmony with all existence. You are finite. So it would not seem possible to make yourself, who are finite, to become in harmony with all existence and then experience absolute being.

But what if harmony is in the self. Not yourself, because in the discord of your soul you have lost the power to resurrect your own being. After all, is it not absurd to think of someone raising themselves from the dead? But not if one is already the absolute being, then he would be resurrection and life

In sin how can we know another, for we shirk from knowing even ourselves

No one knows what is in a man but the spirit. For all things were created in unity within God’s word. A person is of God, but lost from God in sin. Therefore he lives not who he is but who he wants, desires, knows he should be. Or does he? What does he want to be if he has not the created will dwelling in him? For being certainly is not separable from the desire to be. Even if one wishes to be dead, one wishes to be dead because one imagines that the state of non life is better than the state of life. If one is, one desires to be, for one cannot conceive of non-existence, much less desire it. If then he has lost his being as it is in God, the source of his being, what then is there left to produce in him any power that can be said to be a desire for good? This is not a void of desire, for being is desiring, rather it is a desire for the experience of destruction.

This is the awful predicament of sin. Not only does man not have in him what makes him a man, but he does not even have in him the power to desire it if God does not recreate this desire in him. For he has the law of God on their conscience, but with his every inclination he flees it! If then man does not even know himself or what to desire himself even to be, then how can he know another? No, rather outside of Christ the desire to know another must also be a desire for the spiritual destruction of another.

But do we not know of those who have not Christ yet seek good in this world? Certainly! But these ‘good’ individuals are masking the spiritual deadness by attempting to produce good symptoms. This then only alienates them from the knowledge of truth; that they are in fact dead in spirit. So even the act of ‘goodness’ becomes an agent to assure eternal destruction.

Thanks be to God who has desired for us what we could not. He has desired himself, and himself in us. For he alone is true being and life, and his desire is not idle but effective in word and efficient in action. Christ has desired for us what we could not; he desired that we be one in himself that God’s desires work themselves through us as we are brought into him. Having died for us, and desired to do so, not for independent gain, but in submission to the Father, for the prize of his own relationship which he has eternally with the Father, he denies all human desire for the preservation of the body, clearly showing that as a human he desired to avoid the pain itself, and desires God for us, putting all else aside. In fact, he took upon himself the human desire for the experience of self destruction and spent it utterly on the destruction of himself, conquering it through his resurrection and making it void of power in the eternal. Now that all desire of all goodness by man is accomplished by him it is by faith that we are then transformed into Christ’s body which desires the wholeness and unity of this true spiritual body in the love of the Father. In this way, man once again is.

I am not sold on the “essentials and non-essentials” language that is often used in theological discussion. I agree that there are essential truths that the body must remain unified on. However, at what point can we say that a truth is not an essential one? If it is truth is it not eternal, the character of God, his very expression, Christ himself, the Word, regardless of its position in our systematic?

This is not to say that any truth is grounds for division; on the contrary! When we get down to defining what is essential truth, it is often stated to be a teaching on which one’s salvation depends. That is, if one holds to a truth one is saved, if one does not hold to this truth, one is not in Christ. Our measure, then, is whether one is in a relationship with Christ. The other scripture basis for division is if one is living in immorality and is unrepented, i.e., not submitted in love to the body of Christ. Again, the basis is the state of one’s relationship. At this point all truth that one expounds is considered to be as good as non-truth for it comes from a heart that is hardened, in which the Truth does not dwell at all.

Therefore I do not see a way of drawing a line in our doctrine between essential and non-essential doctrine, for the line is not based on the technicalities of one’s dogmatics, but on the status of his relationship with Christ.

If I were to argue that beyond this all truth is equally important and essential, I might (and prefer to) argue that we should be equally gracious to those of various theological persuations as long as they exhibit the humility and love consistent with their holding fast to the head through whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. For in Christ alone is truth. So if they are in Christ the truth that they do not know and express is a part of the righteousness that is credited to them by faith. And the falsehood which they blindly consider to be truth is the sin partaken of by Adam and Eve since their belief in the lie of Satan and is also covered in the blood of Christ by his grace.

If I claim to know something, I cannot claim to know it exhaustively; I am finite. I do say that I know things, though likely some of that which I am sure of knowing I will later renounce, for I have done so in the past and am not yet perfected. Does this mean that nothing can be known for sure? I would think not, though perhaps this is the case. How then do I function intellectually and make absolute statements?

Let us assume for the sake of argument that I can know something for sure. Even that knowledge may not be useful to me if I am not employing it for its intended means (assuming that absolute knowledge comes from an absolute being and therefore was brought into being for a particular purpose). In this case I would not really know it certainly for its very purpose is not fulfilled and thus its knowledge cannot be complete. If we are to believe what is written in scripture, knowledge comes not from a dispassionate law book, but from a personal and dynamic God. Therefore knowledge is part of relationship, and relationship as it was intended to be had with the absolute God. In this case, I know insofar as the developement of my relationship with God permits me to know.

If, however, I cannot know anything in absolute certainty, then to even function I must decide to know something sufficiently. This knowledge must be based on belief, for it cannot be certain. I must become a pragmatist and speak of knowing and operating according to what is beneficial. What can be beneficial but what allows all things to function in harmony? The very idea of harmony causes me to look to its composer, and understand what he desires to create. In scripture the creator creates for his pleasure in a relationship with his creation. In this case I mayknow insofar as it is beneficial in bringing about the kind of relationship that the creator desires.