Many of the items of truth which appear on the pages of this website are intended to answer the confused and confusing teachings of today's degraded Christianity. However, without caution, a reader who has tossed out the bath water may find himself looking for where the baby went. Christ is here. Christ is the Point.
It is ever so important to remember that Bible truth in an objective sense is only the shell, for the reality of Christ is the foundation of the Christian faith. If it were not so, doctrinal error would be a true cause for concern, as it is among some Christians. However, doctrinal correctness is quite secondary.
According to the revelation of the entire Bible, God's love for man is boundless. From His creation of Adam in His own image in Genesis, to the establishment of the Holy City as the consummation of God in the church in Revelation, the whole Bible reveals how God just wants to be one with man. It is through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ that the Triune God has accomplished His eternal purpose. As Anastasius stated so simply in the fourth century, God became man that man might become God.
Because of the confused situation among Christians today, many things are taught which are not according to the pure truth of the Holy Word. In such a situation, a strong and clear answer is required. But in all of our explorations of what the Bible teaches us, we must always come back to Christ and His Body.
I am fully unqualified to be the minister of such high matters, but I will try to give an outline of what is supposed to happen to the Christian during his lifetime.
Regeneration is what happens to the spirit of the believer. It is the process of spiritual rebirth which is commonly called being "born again". All genuine Christians have experienced regeneration. However, not all who call themselves Christians are regenerated. This is part of the problem. The lack of spiritual rebirth means that it is impossible to receive the rest of God's blessings in Christ. And yet, social systems are in place to allow such persons to become leaders in their denominations. This leadership then leads to errors becoming widespread.
The widespread errors began to dominate the Christian church as early as the second century and continue right up to the present. These errors are now so widespread that even unbelievers are familiar with them. Thus, it is a necessary part of the normal Christian life to "unlearn" much of what he "knows". This process of "unlearning" should be considered "recovery" because the human mind which is filled with such error must be restored to a state of no longer relying upon such things. Of course, one can never actually forget all the religious background, but one must not let oneself act according to it. The Lord said it this way:
Matt 18:3 (rv) And said, Truly I say to you, Unless you turn and become like little children, you shall by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens.
What this means as a practical matter is that we need to forget what we "know" about God and His ways and only take the pure Word of God as taught by the Spirit to meet our needs. But this is really a small thing. All it does is get us into a position to receive something from Him. The receiving of the things of the faith requires an open spirit.
There are some basic activities which Christians should practice in their daily lives which will help them to learn of Him. But learning about His character and His ways is still secondary. The real goal of all of our Christian activities is to become constituted with His being in our beings. We are born of Him and are one with Him in our spirits. Yet, the simple fact is that we are not one with Him in all of our daily life activities. The Christian life is one where God acts through us in our activities. For this, we must give Him the way.
In order to come to a place where God acts in our acting, He must be in our being, not only in our spirits, but also in our minds, our emotions, and our wills, our whole souls. Our minds must be transformed according to His mind. Our emotions must be molded to become His feelings. Our wills must be submitted to His purposes. This is a process of continuing salvation. The initial salvation of regeneration is only the beginning of the full salvation of God. It saves us out of death and into life. It takes us out of the world and puts us into Christ. Yet, day by day, the process of salvation must continue. Many Christians have no concept that the salvation they have received is just the start of a lifelong process. And this is why the heaven/hell teaching is so damaging.
The process of salvation is how God actually mingles Himself with our very being to constitute us with His own divine element and to produce us as His sons. We open our beings to this transforming work again and again when we contact Him in our human spirit. The Holy Spirit, as a quiet internal spreading, changes us nearly imperceptibly over time. Every time we partake of some aspect of His salvation for our enjoyment, God gains the ground in us. As a practical matter, Isaiah 12:3-6 gives some tools we can use to enjoy God's salvation in us.
Isai 12:3 (KJV) Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. 4 And in that day shall ye say, Praise the LORD, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted. 5 Sing unto the LORD; for he hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth. 6 Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.
We can write them as a list:
While it is important to also study the Bible as well, the real goal of the normal Christian life is not that God would have people who know the Bible but to have glorious sons. The internal process of the application of faith to the words of the Bible produces the same saving effect as these items in Isaiah. But simply knowing the Bible does not accomplish it. It is also important to pray but not just to ask God for things. When we pray, we simply need to come before God and bask in His glory and take Him into our being. He knows what we need for our living. We need to care for the spiritual life with Him and He will care for our needs.
The most practical thing to do to participate in God's full salvation is to call upon His name. By opening our hearts to Him and sincerely reaching out in the Spirit with our hearts, we open our mouths and audibly beckon Him to come to us. You could never call on the Lord's name enough times to accomplish all the transformation that must be done. But every time we call, "Oh, Lord Jesus!" welcoming Him into our beings, we get His personal attention and He makes His home the more in our hearts.
The normal Christian life is also one of the Body life in the church. What this means practically is just that we must fellowship this enjoyment one with another. This is not the same thing as attending a service on Sunday or even every day of the week. Fellowship means that we give our spiritual enjoyment to others that they may also enjoy it. God is incorporated into us and we are incorporated into each other. When we have enjoyed something of Christ as life in our beings, we can and must feed it to others. The lesson of the loaves and the fishes is that the more we share the more we have to enjoy for ourselves. It is through this process of mutual enjoyment of the riches of Christ in God's full and progressive salvation that the church is built. The church, in fact, builds itself.
Ephe 4:16 (rv) Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.
This building work will continue among us on a day by day basis until the Lord returns.
On the personal side, each individual believer will eventually be glorified in their mortal bodies. As the church, the corporate expression of Christ lived out through all the believers will eventually be the New Jerusalem on the new earth. We all have far to go before we see this kind of manifestation of God in us. Yet it will certainly be done and it is accomplished little by little in our daily lives. The danger of ignoring the inner life is that this work will be so incomplete in us that we are still immature when the Lord returns. We have to pray for His mercy that we would be faithful in our daily lives.
I hope this message has been a help to you. It was a burden upon me to make clear that the purpose of this site is not to be a criticism of what is wrong with traditional teachings but an attempt to clear those things out of the way so that Christ can be revealed. I fully trust in the working of the Spirit and I have absolutely no confidence in my abilities. I am sure to get it wrong again and again. Nevertheless, if we can drop our religious concepts which keep us from seeing Christ in God's economy and then seek the guidance of the Spirit as to the revelation of the Holy Word, we will gain much light. And in the light we receive from Him, His Person is added into us and we have the further way that yet even more can be added. Otherwise, darkness only produces more darkness
A book by the title of the Normal Christian Life was written by Watchman Nee. It is available in any good Christian bookstore, or from The Scriptorium.
