Thursday, July 10, 2003
It's All About Christ
Recently, I was impressed with how Christ centered the epistles are. Sometimes it's hard for us who have enjoyed the convenience and luxury of e-zines, weblogs and even the printed page to imagine that the early church didn't possess personal copies of Scripture and that they basically functioned with a few copies of half the Bible that we enjoy today. They didn't have much to build a grand system of theology. They didn't have an overflow of popular Christian books to wade through. All they had was the memory of Christ and their own experiences of His Spirit in their midst.
I'm blown away when I read passages like Ephesians 1:23, 2:22, 3:17,19, 4:13 and Colossians 1:15-18, 27, 2:9-10. Everything Paul taught was based on, centered in, and founded on Christ! I sense that modern theology has been built on systematic thought rather than on Christ. What we think is Christ centered is really Bible centered. And I think there's a big difference between the two!
I know that I am in danger of being labeled a heretic for this kind of thought. We love our Bibles so much. I wonder if we love Christ half as much as we do the Scriptures? The evangelical tradition I was trained in would tell us that they're pretty much one and the same. But I don't have a personal relationship with a book. I wasn’t saved by 1,941 pages of truth. I was saved by a Person who is Truth.
The Christian life isn’t about a better way to live. It isn’t about making life work. It isn’t about doing what I need to do so that I could get what I want in life. The Christian life is about a living, pulsating, varying, changing, unpredictable relationship with One who is totally reliable, whose character never changes and whose love never fails. It’s all about Christ.
I received a revelation last Sunday at the Leadership Summit that Christ manifests himself in 3 ways. In Galatians 2:20, Christ is in us. Every single individual who loves Jesus is a living stone indwelt by a living God. Christ manifests himself in a personal way. Matthew 18:20 reveals that not only is Christ in us but Christ is amongst us. When we gather as church in his name, he is with us in a special way. Christ manifests himself amongst us in a mystical way. Then in 1 Corinthians 14:3, 24-25, we have the church building itself up through manifestations of the Spirit known as spiritual gifts. Christ manifests himself through us. We become God’s love with skin on it. In these ways, we experience the fullness of Christ in the midst of us.
When the fullness of Christ is manifest in us, amongst us, and through us, principles are not as attractive as the real Person. In this way the church can become more organic.
I'm blown away when I read passages like Ephesians 1:23, 2:22, 3:17,19, 4:13 and Colossians 1:15-18, 27, 2:9-10. Everything Paul taught was based on, centered in, and founded on Christ! I sense that modern theology has been built on systematic thought rather than on Christ. What we think is Christ centered is really Bible centered. And I think there's a big difference between the two!
I know that I am in danger of being labeled a heretic for this kind of thought. We love our Bibles so much. I wonder if we love Christ half as much as we do the Scriptures? The evangelical tradition I was trained in would tell us that they're pretty much one and the same. But I don't have a personal relationship with a book. I wasn’t saved by 1,941 pages of truth. I was saved by a Person who is Truth.
The Christian life isn’t about a better way to live. It isn’t about making life work. It isn’t about doing what I need to do so that I could get what I want in life. The Christian life is about a living, pulsating, varying, changing, unpredictable relationship with One who is totally reliable, whose character never changes and whose love never fails. It’s all about Christ.
I received a revelation last Sunday at the Leadership Summit that Christ manifests himself in 3 ways. In Galatians 2:20, Christ is in us. Every single individual who loves Jesus is a living stone indwelt by a living God. Christ manifests himself in a personal way. Matthew 18:20 reveals that not only is Christ in us but Christ is amongst us. When we gather as church in his name, he is with us in a special way. Christ manifests himself amongst us in a mystical way. Then in 1 Corinthians 14:3, 24-25, we have the church building itself up through manifestations of the Spirit known as spiritual gifts. Christ manifests himself through us. We become God’s love with skin on it. In these ways, we experience the fullness of Christ in the midst of us.
When the fullness of Christ is manifest in us, amongst us, and through us, principles are not as attractive as the real Person. In this way the church can become more organic.
