One additional thought: In my Christianity, this projection of Jesus as some super big brother who walks with me and talks with me and who I know better than my own wife (what???) is just that - an anthropomorphic projection. In many women, it has a quasi-sexual aspect that strikes me - maybe not you - as creepy. In many men, it seems to give them a "good buddy" to whom they can relate even if He's mostly a projection of their own minds. My actual experience, and my theology, is of the Holy Spirit who indwells, guides and transforms my life. The Holy Spirit is the Christ spirit, but He is not Jesus. It seems to me there is a great deal of confusion here, and it was one of the real turn-offs in my time with the Southern Baptist Church.
Just a Question: If your only time with Jesus was here, would you still love Him?
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Which in my theology would be, "If I were to give a succinct statement of what I see as the path to a mature Christianity, it would be that we come to know GOD more and more, and in knowing Him more, we become more like Him. We let HIS HOLY SPIRIT work in us, and through us, and this transforms us to be like Him."
I don't believe these are unimportant distinctions. In seeing God only in terms of Jesus, much is lost.
Interestingly, I chose to write my post focused on Jesus, in a way I don't normally write. I had noticed that as I was doing it. And it turns out to be meaningful to you. And I agree very much with your conclusion! I think there is a great deal that can be said on this.
A couple of passages I had in mind as I wrote were these.
Romans 8:9-11 KJV
9) But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
10) And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11) But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
The Spirit of Christ in me declares I'm one of His.
Colossians 3:9-11 KJV
9) Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
10) And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
11) Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
Jesus created all that was created, I'm renewed in knowledge after the image of Christ, my Creator.
2 Corinthians 3:14-18 KJV
14) But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15) But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16) Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17) Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18) But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
This is about Christ, and the heart that turns to Him, in whom the vail is removed.
Beholding in a glass, this is seeing in a mirror, the glory of the Lord.
A couple of passages I've been thinking about now are these,
2 Corinthians 4:6-7 KJV
6) For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7) But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
Light was created by He Who Created All Things, Jesus Christ. Who has shined into our hearts.
Reminds me of,
Colossians 3:3 KJV
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
But the other one I had in mind was,
Ephesians 4:20-24 KJV
20) But ye have not so learned Christ;
21) If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22) That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
23) And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24) And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
We learn of Jesus Christ - Learn of Me . . . you shall find rest - He is the New Man we are putting on, being renewed in the knowledge of Him.
Much love!
Perhaps the thread would have been more intelligible and stayed on track a little better if the question would have been whether we would love GOD as much without any prospect of eternal life. This almost sole focus on Jesus among many Christians is one my pet peeves - as though the Father and Holy Spirit were bit players.
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
This reminded me when God sent Moses to save the Hebrews out of Egypt.
He promised to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey.
They would have to go through "hell" to get there, and along the way they got very bitter and accusing because they didn't see the evidence of that promise fulfilled according to their time line.
We want it NOW!!!
All I can say is I prefer to go through hell with Jesus than without him.
Not because what is at the end of the tunnel, but because the journey itself would be worthless without him.
hugs
Bob Estey
Well-Known Member
I don't want to spend eternity alone. Therefore, I walk with Jesus.
you have no life without Him. You are mortal. Eternal life is a gift See John 3:16. Not everyone will have it.
Lambano
Well-Known Member
May I elaborate on that?
16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:16-19)
Following Christ can cost you everything: Persecution, your time, your job, your family, your friends, your possessions, your very life. Everything. Those who gave their life for Christ have thrown away everything, and for what? "I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity". But the promise of eternal life with Jesus in the World to Come does free us to love Christ now with what we could not keep anyway.
Yes. You (and Paul) are getting at what I was attempting to get at. Not only have many Christians suffered for their faith in the way you described, but many have suffered, just as human beings, lifelong hideous diseases, ghastly deaths in wars and disasters, wracking hunger and poverty. "Thank you, Jesus!" - for WHAT, if not the hope of eternal life?
Some of the "Thank you, Jesus, even if this life is all there is!" perspectives are extremely parochial, white bread, middle-class Western perspectives. Jesus is our cosmic boyfriend and golf buddy. To me, anyway, Christianity is a far greater mystery than this. It certainly seems to me that Jesus was saying, "Follow Me and this life isn't going to be pretty or pleasant - but there will be a better life awaiting."
Lambano
Well-Known Member
Thank you. That is a much-needed perspective. Have we forgotten that for most of human history and for almost all but the upper 0.1% of humanity, life has been, and still is, "nasty, brutish, and short"?
Lambano
Well-Known Member
Lambano
Well-Known Member
Sometime the "why" is the important part.
I see both sides on this one, and I specifically wanted to understand O'Darby's position better.
Lambano
Well-Known Member
The Old Testament does not speak directly of an afterlife (though there are hints); Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead developed sometime in the intertestamental period. So for about a thousand years, God's people HAD to love God (with their whole heart, mind, soul, and strength) without the explicit hope of eternal life.
Ah, not just "born again" but "truly born again." There is "no uncertainty, ambiguity or doubt" in the world of a True Christian as defined by those who divide the faith into True Christians just like themselves and Believers Not Just Like Themselves, who are by definition not True Christians (if they are believers at all - we True Christianx have our doubts).
"No uncertainty, ambiguity or doubt" is why "Christianity" is fragmented and bitterly divided and 100,000 authors have written 1,000,000 books trying to make sense of it - ya think? It's why those of the deepest and most mature faith in all traditions - Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant - honestly acknowledge the role of uncertainty, ambiguity and doubt in genuine faith. Oh, but wait - if they were True Christians, all the fragmentation, division, ambiguity and doubt would vanish. Ergo, if their faith won't fit on a bumper sticker like ours, then they simply aren't True Christians - see how that works?
I really think we need a special Christian version of the No True Scotsman Fallacy: No True Scotsman.
I understand that there is a species of believer - and I fully accept them as fellow believers - for whom this need for everything to be as neat, tidy and simple as a bumper sticker and for Jesus to be an anthropomorphic big brother who walks beside them (as opposed to an amorphous Holy Spirit who mysteriously indwells them) is truly just that - a psychological NEED. It isn't a need for the vast majority of believers, who can acknowledge some element of uncertainty, ambiguity, mystery and doubt in trying to live out their faith.
It likewise ISN'T THE DEFINITION OF A TRUE CHRISTIAN. There is no such definition.
I lasted less than two years - well, really, probably not even two weeks, although I pretended longer than that - in bumper-sticker Christianity. It is Christianity, but it is no more True Christianity than is my version.
Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine. I know which earthly family I belong to and I also know that I belong to God's family. I feel sorry fo you if you do not have that assurance. In Christ, born again, you definitely can have it.
At the end of the day, it remains an hypothetic, which cannot every really be answered. How can you know unless you are there?
As I've said, I agree, focusing entirely on Jesus doesn't match how the Bible teaches us about God, just the same, Jesus is front and center concerning how we learn of God.
Much love!
Much love!
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