Part 2 of 4
“If it’s not
about Jesus, it’s not about anything.”
(Motto of the Fountain of Life)
Invocation: Father, in Jesus’ name we pray that this
subject be treated faithfully, honestly and respectfully. We invoke the motto of the Fountain of Life
to keep all that follows in this four part series in a proper focus and that
the name of Jesus be glorified.
SPS: God adopts us, begets us and loves us, making
us His children. The purpose of this
message is to demonstrate that these are not symbolic words, but rather, they
are reality in the most powerful meaningful way that scripture can convey.
The Freedom which we have in Christ has
as its foundation the Incarnation of Christ and its actualization through the
vicarious humanity of Jesus. Exploring
this freedom reveals some beautiful knowledge about Jesus. We shall see that the vicarious humanity of
Christ is a thread which weaves itself continuously through the fabric of these
discussions. We began by asking three simple
questions.
- First: Who is Christ?
- Second: Who are we?
- Third: What does freedom in Christ look like? Today we address the second question, “Who are we?”
WHO AM I?
Brethren, how many of us view the Bible
primarily as a “How To” book? How to get
to heaven, how to avoid sin, how to avoid the Tribulation, how to be a good
person, spouse and parent. These are all
wonderful goals to pursue, but in our pursuit do we miss the Who of
Salvation? Do we place these noble goals
above Christ? Our last section spent
much time answering the question that Paul asked on the Road to Damascus, “Who
are You Lord?”
Jesus is the legitimate
faithful giver of grace; this Redeemer Savior God is man just as we; He is the
one from whom all blessings flow. And
one of those blessings is freedom. When
we realize who Christ is; an important question looms. That question is, “Who am I?” When we consider those two questions our
focus changes from how to whom. The
focus changes from our doing something to our relationship with someone.
When we ask “Who am I?” several
difficulties arise because humanly speaking we seem limited to one of
four responses.
1.
I am who I am.
2.
I am who I think I am.
3.
I am who you think I am.
4.
I am who I think you I think I am.
Even if we are sincere in our
assessments, we can’t really know who we are.
For example:
1.
I am honest. I even think I am
honest. You think I am a liar and tell
others. Society identifies me as a liar
and does not trust me. Therefore, I am a
liar to the world.
2.
I think I am honest, but I am a liar.
You think I am honest. Therefore
I am honest to the world and to myself.
I do or say whatever justifies the end without fear or guilt. Lying to me is just a useful tool, not even
considered as a virtue or a vice.
Therefore, who I think am and who you think I am may be vastly different
from who I am. You may be right or
wrong. I may be right or wrong.
We could use many variations of this,
who am I, idea to show that the reality and the perception both contribute to
our identity. Also, we acknowledge that our
own perception may be flawed. So who are
we? And how do we know? What is missing?
 |
| Curt Flood |
Curt Flood was the center fielder of the
St. Louis Cardinals during the 1960s. He
was one of my boyhood heroes. He told a
story about playing ball in the segregated South of the 1950s. Flood knew who he was. He had an identity. He was a man, a husband, a father, a
ballplayer. This identity was
ignored. He was also a black man. This alone became his identity there. It impressed him deeply, as he said, “They
called me everything except a Child of God.”
Everything except a child of God. And therein lies the missing key to our
identity. Flood knew what it was. It was Christ. Jesus brings an additional dimension to the
question of whoness. Who are you in Jesus? We are God’s very children, members of His
very own family. We are the adoptive
sons and daughters. And love is
involved. It transcends covenant
love. It is not a quid pro quo love,
such as you love me then I love you. It
is not a legal contract type of love such as if I love you, you are obligated
to love me. No, it is not this type of
love. It intimate, personal and
relational love. We know this because
Jesus calls the Father Abba in Mark 14:36.
Christ living in us gives to us a connection with Abba Father. Jesus living in us is the guarantee of
personal love. It is relationship love as
being children of God; as being His sons and daughters.
We hope for the freedom promised in
Christ. Knowing who we are in Jesus is
the working of faith. Jesus living in us
is the guarantee of the truth of faith.
Faith is the evidence of things hoped for. Without Christ hopes are just desires. With Christ living in us hope is not desire;
hope is reality. With Christ living in
us, His Father is our Father. It is our
life in Christ that gives us our true identity.
To paraphrase Rev. Todd Crouch, “When we realize who Christ is, and who we are in Jesus, then we have
accomplished everything that a human being was created to accomplish.”
Through faith we know that we are personal
sons and daughters of God the Father, our loving parent. Nonetheless, most Christians give little
attention to our relationship with God our loving parent. Rather most focus upon our relationship with God
our awesome Creator; the eternal Ancient of Days; the all-powerful First
Cause. Yes brethren, the Father is all
of these, and we lovingly and humble relate to Him as such. Yet we are not limited to this. The Holy infinitely powerful Father, is also
our loving Parent; our dad, if
you will. In His great transcendent
glory we tend to forget His intimate love.
Christ choose to call the Father Abba in order to emphasize that He is,
first and foremost, a loving parent.
Yes, it is true that Jesus is our
Lord and Master and Sovereign King. And
yes, we formally, freely and joyfully are His servants, slaves and
subjects. We find our greatest joy
surrendering to and serving Jesus because only in this surrender do we find
ourselves truly free. Yet the vicarious
humanity of Christ shows that there are decidedly personal aspects to our
miraculous relationship to the Trinity through mankind’s inclusion into
Jesus. We have knowledge of it through
God’s own words. He explains it to us
through Jesus, Paul and Peter, and He uses concepts which we can understand;
that is adoption, begettal, and love.
ADOPTION
Ephesians 1:5 reads: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his
will.”
We understand that through
adoption we are formally sons of God and thereby heirs of all the
promises. Today we miss the import of
Roman adoption practices as Paul applied them to us through Christ. Paul uses the formality of Roman law to
powerful effect. (1) Legally the
adopted person lost all rights to his old family (the carnal world if you
will), and gained all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family (the
Body of Christ if you will). Literally and legally he got a new father.
(2) The adoptee became heir to the new father’s estate. And this is
important. If other sons were afterwards
born, who were real blood relations, it did not affect the adoptee’s
inheritance rights. The importance of
adoption and inheritance rights is illustrated by the fact that the most
powerful in society used and legitimatized them. History records that Augustus Caesar was
adopted by Julius Caesar; Claudius adopted Nero. (3) In Roman law, the
old life of the adoptee was completely wiped out. For instance, legally
all debts (sin if you will) were cancelled; they were wiped out as though they
had never been. The adopted person was regarded as a new person entering
into a new life with which the past had nothing to do. (4) In the eyes of
the law the adoptee was without question or debate the son of the new
father. (5) This fifth point must have made a deep impression upon Paul’s
audience. In Roman society it was not
uncommon for a natural born infant to be cast out onto the roadside to die, as
the Roman Father washed his hands of obligations to the child. Paul’s audience knew that this abandonment,
this cruel fate would never ever happen to the adoptee.
BEGETTAL
(The Spirit of Relationship)
Broadly speaking some Western
Theologies focus upon the sovereignty of the Father. And some focus upon the ministry of the
Spirit. Trinitarian Theology is
Christocentric. It believes the literal
reality of John 14:9, when Jesus says to Philip “He that sees me has seen the
Father.” We look to Jesus as the
revelation of God. This focus is
incarnational and it portrays a Trinity which is relational and inclusional. Because we are included into Jesus that
indicates that inclusion into God is through an ontology which is not through His
Unoriginate Divine Spirit Essence, which would exclude all created beings. It reveals that relationship itself is a unique
living aspect of God’s ontological essence.
A very human question at this point
is, how does Divine Begettal work? The
answer is that we as humans cannot know.
However, God does allow us to speculate within reason, with moderation. At
this point let’s view some hopefully reasonable speculation upon the
mechanics of this begettal relationship.
We consider many things to be attributes of God, when in fact they are
not attributes, but they are His essence, His nature. Consider love, truth and wisdom.
Love is not an attribute of God. GOD IS LOVE (1 John 4:8). Love is His ontological essence, the essence
of the Trinity. The Three Divine Persons relate through this same love. Truth is not an attribute of Jesus. Jesus is truth. (John 14:5:
I am the way, the truth,
and the life.)
Truth is His ontological
essence, the essence of the Trinity. The
Trinity is related through this same truth.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of
Truth (John 16:13) who guides us into all truth. In like manner, just as He is the Spirit of
Wisdom and Understanding who makes us quick of understanding (Isaiah 11:2-3) He
is also the Spirit of Relationship/Inclusion who brings us into begettal
through His essence of Relationship. Perhaps
this look at relational ontology explains the working of the ontology of spirit
spoken of in John 3:5 in which a man must be born of the spirit.
Dear Reader, we cannot know how divine
begettal works, however we can see the results of it. Genesis 1 shows that the living creatures
were to bring forth each after its own kind.
This is the definition of begettal; to bring forth each after its own
essence; after its own ontology. This
understanding goes far into explaining why Paul could write such scriptures as
2 Thessalonians 2:14, “Whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of our lord Jesus Christ.”
And Romans 8:17, “And if children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs
with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified
together.”
The concept of the glory of
Christ in these scriptures is easily passed over, because at first glance it is
too wonderful to be considered as literal.
Newer translations, however; such as the New International Version,
Today’s New International Version and the New Living Translation are bolder and
more direct as they link our adoption and our inheritance to the phrase “sharing
in Jesus’ glory.”
This
incredible sharing explains 1 John 3:2, “When he appears we shall be like him,
because we shall see him as he is.”
Yes, we shall be like him. It is as
though God the Father chooses to adopt His own begotten children. To the 1st Century mind, linking
begettal with adoption must have been an incredibly powerful indicator of the
strength and reality of our position of being children of God. Since we share in this relationship it has
tremendous import not only on how we understand God’s self-revelation in Christ
and His vicarious Humanity, but how we view ourselves and how we understand
freedom.
LOVE
“God the Father is our Daddy”
Does that sound disrespectful? I’m sure it does. The first time I heard it, I shook my
head. But that is because we see Father
in Genesis and understand Father theologically, not ontologically. To us it means sovereignty, power, creation,
and it is linked to the concept of First Cause.
This accurate perception is far removed from…daddy. Some godly theologians take issue with
anybody being “buddy-buddy” with the Great Almighty Father. Many insist upon a respectful formality. Formal respect given to God is proper and
godly behavior. And it is a blessing
that we may honor God this way.
Nonetheless, the Incredible News is that we are not limited to this
already wonderful relationship. (1
Corinthians 2:9: “Eye hath not seen, not
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has
prepared for them that love him.”)
Formality alone leads to a viable
but incomplete and far too often to a stilted relationship. A formal stilted relationship distorts our
view, even our view of ourselves. It is
as though we say “Sure, I am God’s son, but He is totally sovereign,
frightfully awesome and unapproachable in His holiness. I’d just better stay out of His way and act
reverently like one of the servants.”
But there is another dimension to this adoption/begettal process that
completes the relationship. Have you
ever given any thought to the intimacy the Father offers to us by our inclusion
into Jesus through the Holy Spirit? Paul
shows a marvelous thing with the formality of adoption. He links it to human love and affection with
the title “Abba.” Romans 8:15: “For ye have not received the spirit of
bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we
cry, Abba Father”; and Galatians 4:6: “And
because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts, crying Abba, Father.”
Sometime we are so focused upon and
understandably intimated by the sovereignty and majesty of God the Father that
we forget that we are no longer servants but included as sons, daughters and
joint heirs with Christ. Sometime we
regard it as irreverent to claim the same closeness and intimacy with the
Almighty Father God that we possess with our human dads. We feel proud to call ourselves bond slaves
of Jesus as did St. Paul in Romans 1:1.
We feel it irreverent to recognize our inclusion in Christ’s inheritance
(Romans 8:17; Titus 3:7; Galatian 4:5) and irreverent to respond as loving children
of the Great Almighty Father. But think
on it again.
ABBA: It is an Aramaic/Chaldean word. According to W.E. Vine’s “An Expository
Dictionary of New Testament Words” “Slaves (servants if you will) were
forbidden to address the head of the family with this title Abba. It approximates a personal name.” Abba is the word spoken by infants when they
are learning to form words. It implies
the unreasoning trust of a child who is unaware of the sovereign power of the
father of the house. The child only
knows the love, the care, the attention, and the tender and often playful touch
of the daddy and responds accordingly.
This intimate love relationship is also ours. Could this knowledge bring untold joy to our
spirits?
ADOPTION – BEGETTAL - LOVE
Let’s close today with 1 John 3:2, “When
he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” We see him because our relational essence is
the same. It is a begettal through the relational
ontology with the God of creation. It is
written in 1 Peter 1:23, “For you have been begotten not of seed which is
perishable but imperishable, that is through the living and abiding word of
God.” Begettal adds an additional level to
our relationship. It carries a different
connotation than adoption. It
strengthens the adoption concept and compliments the Abba concept.
We see then, that God uses in His Word the
most powerful language available at the time. God’s Word uses concepts and terms which we
can understand, that show we are His children in every conceivable way. We are His without question or debate. We are His children by legal adoption; by ontological
begettal and by the emotional love shared between an infant and parent.
This answers the question “Who are
we?” We are God’s very own children,
members of his very own family in every conceivable way. We are the legitimate receivers of His
outrageous faithfulness. With our
identity in Jesus firmly secure, in our next section let’s look more closely at
our freedom in Christ.
Benediction: Dear brothers and sisters, grow in grace, and
in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever. God bless you all.
Rev. George Relic, Assistant Pastor
(724-583-9217)
Fountain of Life Church, A congregation of
Grace Communion International
2021 Old National Pike,
Washington, Pa 15301
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