19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
I was doing a little surfing this morning and came across this passage on a fellow bloggers post. It was a revelation moment for him.
In my opinion, the new Christian Law is a parallel to the old Judaic Law. While it is useful for instruction in righteousness, it is not righteousness. It becomes merde when used to divide creation and to draw lines. It shifts our focus from a God who dwells within, to a God who has expectations for rule following. Christ, The God Child, fully God and fully man, dwells in me and I in Him by the very faith breathed in me. I have deep love and gratitude for this union and I AM FREE!
I have trouble with some of my christian brothers and sisters because they are busy making camps by which they can be identified. They are busy building one way bridges and putting up fences and drawing lines. They are worshiping the law and tradition and idols of every sort, while becoming increasingly insulated they are so heavenly minded, they are no earthly good.
When Christ divided the loaves and fed the people he told them about the bread of life. They couldn't believe that it was free.......we still cant.
I think it's always easy when people have swang too far one way in life, to overcompensate by swinging too far the other way to try and rectify the inbalance. That's to do with an individual's personality, nothing to do with Christian living. It's good that this bloke had an epiphany that HE needed and we all need them, it's how we grow and learn, but it doesn't mean that the lesson he learned is the way everyone should live or that it's the whole balance of the truth as it stands outside of his personal eisegesis.
ReplyDeleteThe truth taken as a whole is more complex than that which is why the Apostles wrote letters after letter to the churches, discipling them and sending the Church Fathers to them. Some of it was to do with correcting the inbalance from law to grace and in other letters it was about Godly order, self-control, discipline and character.
The gospel is simple, it's not simplistic and people shouldn't try and make it as if it is. Faith and works run side by side and without BOTH the Church gets messed up and people don't end up loving each other properly. Love isn't just about peace and forgiveness and there there awww poor baby don't worry God understand. Even though all that is true, sometimes people need to say true stuff to each other about their pride or their greed or indifferance and no i'm not talking about the disgusting bitching that goes on in Churches in the name of "truth", that's just an excuse to bitch and let out the poison that's inside of the person. I'm talking about proper love that has a balance of 'poor baby, come and have a squeeze' and 'get a fucking life and stop whining!'
I'm happy for this bloke, i am but it's not the whole truth only what HE needed.
Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen
Brenda
Yay! Bingo! Amen!
ReplyDeleteWell written and thoughtful AND balanced!
Sue carved a pumpkin yesterday and we have been eating the seeds.....yum! She smiled and said "look, I carved a happy face...I like happy pumpkins"
don
I was just remembering our young friendship many years ago now. You wanted to talk about forgiveness and I wanted to talk about repentance...haha now the tables have turned? No, because both are important and both are not complete without each other. I beek off about "the line" yet there must be a righteous line in order to understand right from wrong. It is easy for me to dispise the law, yet it is the law, which I have used to understand right from wrong. I talk about being free from the law, yet without the law, how could I have freedom from it? Its all one big package and I am only free, because I am a slave(doulos)to Christos.
ReplyDelete