Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Jesus was not just an objective truth

Jesus was not just an objective truth… He is a person. He is the One in which all Truth came and comes from. One can call this Absolute Truth, yet I prefer simply to call Him Jesus as that is His name.

Jesus taught truth, plain and simple… it is man who then needs to label and then dissect it into a category. Sometimes it is to understand it, which is fine, but often it is then mistaken in it’s many parts that the parts itself are the whole… yet that is not truth. It is then diminished as truth as it is not connected to the whole… or as the Bible says, the Head. The body is the illustration that is used… it has many parts, but it needs to be connected to the Head (Jesus) to have its Life. To say that truth is objective negates the need or rather the ability to bring internally and understand it and live it in ones life… in that one must bring objective truth in to the realm of subjective internalization.

It is to me that Truth is like the River of Life that flows from the throne of God in the Book of Revelation. It flows from the Throne, onto God’s people who then drink it in. If it is just objective it is like a person who just looks at the stream yet does not drink… Jesus says to eat and drink…

That is the problem of the Law, as it is like a mirror that can say ones face is dirty, but do nothing to clean it. James says it like this:

James 1: 22. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24. and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does. (NIV)

We are to internalize it and do it… that is the progression. Jesus told of the story of two sons…


Matt 21: 28…There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, `Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'
29. "`I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
30. "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, `I will, sir,' but he did not go.
31. "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

If we view the Truth of Jesus as just objective truth and not internalize it we are like the first son who said, “I will, sir” but did nothing as we have not let the Truth into our life.

John says it so many times that Truth must be within us… Just a superficial look at 1 John will prove that it truth is relational as it must dwell in us… in the person of Jesus. To deny this is to deny scripture.

It pains me to argue with someone over this. To see that one has reduce the Life of Christ to a system of theology… as if they think they can contain God… in hopes to control Him and understand Him… it is as if we think if we can understand God, We can master Him. This is most often not even realized or thought of by so many who are just taught traditions like Calvinism or Wesleyan theology even in Roman Catholicism (just to name a few as there are many who embrace systems without even calling them a system). This is not to be confused with a system of study…

My point though is in the oft taught idea that context means everything… Hermeneutics is a great way to learn scripture yet then God throws out a curve ball! My point is this… early in my walk it was hammered, “Context! Context! Context!” which is not a bad rule, yet then I read Matthew… and he throws that idea out the window as he tells us that “this was done to fulfill the scripture”. He will seem to just use a verse at random in the OT and say it is fulfilled! And I then say, so much for that system!

We need to be open that our ways are not God’s ways and that we can be so set in our own “version” of understanding that we may actually stop growing. We are not to ever stop growing! That is what emerging is when broken down to its most basic understanding is… to grow… to emerge like a infant, to a toddler… from a toddler to a preteen… from preteen to teen… from teen to young adult… you get my point.

If we stop growing we can not achieve maturity in the faith. To say we have “THE SYSTEM” is to say we have arrived… if we arrived then there is not need to continue in our going further on our journey… or in the case of our faith, we no longer need to follow Jesus if we have already arrived. I see though that Jesus is not static, but every calling us deeper in to Himself. In fact I see that we may never fully know the fullness of His love nor its width, depth or height.

It takes true humility to admit one does not “know”… and true faith to continue to trust in spite of not seeing or knowing. So I challenge the reader with this question, do you worship a system? Or do you worship the LIVING CHRIST? No system will save you from hell… Only Jesus is the answer for you salvation.

Blessings,
iggy

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