The Holy of Holies (3)

 

 

“That they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me” (John 17:22 – 23).

 

“My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).

 

“Abide in Me, and I in you” (John 15:4).

 

This is the Way we are to live, in the Trinity, by the Life of God. We live in God and God lives in us. As the Trinity is One, just as the Trinity is One, so are we to be One. We live in the Trinity as individuals, and we live in the Trinity as the Body of Christ.

 

If we are indeed the Body of Christ, we must live in the Trinity, for wherever the Head lives, the entire Body lives.

 

While the Holy Spirit lives within each of us who are in Christ, the Holy Spirit also lives in us as the Temple of God – on Pentecost the Holy Spirit filled the true Temple of God, He filled “us.” He made us the “dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph. 2:21 – 22).

 

Jesus Christ is our Bread of Life, we live by His body and blood, we partake of the Divine Nature (John 6:53; 2 Peter 1:4).

 

This is not something we attain to, this is something that we believe, accept, submit to, and confess. We learn to live according to this understanding, we learn to live according to what Jesus is teaching us. We have been raised from the dead in Christ and we now sit with Jesus Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:1 – 10) – He is the basis of our life, He is the sole source of life, and the oneness with one another to which He calls us is our mission in life (Eph. 4:14 – 16).

 

Since Jesus is clear that effective witness is dependent on our loving as He loves (John 13:34 – 35) and being one as the Trinity is One, how is it that we either ignore what Jesus teaches, or provide excuse after excuse why we should not obey what Jesus teaches?

 

In the Holy of Holies we not only find our source of Life (God the Trinity), we also find our mission; we not only find our mission, we find the means by which our mission is fulfilled. To live in the koinonia of the Trinity means that those who live in koinonia with us also come to live in the koinonia of the Trinity (1 John 1:3).

 

As we partake of the life of God, we share that very life of God with others. As we partake of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus, we offer that very same Body and Blood in Christ to others. We share His life with one another in the Body, and as His Body we share His Life with the people of the world.

 

Our calling in Christ is to say with Jesus, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The words we speak, the things we do, are not to be done on our own initiative, but are to be what we hear the Trinity speak and what we see the Trinity do (John 14:10). We are to live as Jesus lives, always, always, always. We are to know no other source of life than Jesus Christ.

 

Must this not begin in our congregations? (Phil. 2:1 – 16; Eph. 4:1 – 16; 1 Cor. 12; Rom 12).

 

Must this not begin Christian to Christian? In congregation to congregation?

 

Where is the congregation, the pastor, the movement, the denomination, with the faith and courage to say, “We will live according to the Word of Christ, we will live for the Temple of God (Haggai Chapter 1), we will live in the Oneness of the Trinity seeking the Divine Oneness of our brothers and sisters – no matter what others may do or say. We will give our lives up so that others may live. We will love as we are commanded.”

 

The “new and living Way” that we are called to live is in intimacy with God within the Holy of Holies, the veil has been rent once and for all (Hebrews 10:19 – 25). This is an experience best enjoyed together – there is nothing like unity in Christ (Psalm 133).

 

Yet, instead of moving in this direction, we move away from Him into our own little spheres of religion and practice and parochialism. We think we know better than God. We think God is impractical. We seek solutions in the natural, in the flesh, we do not think the Holy Spirit and the Word sufficient for life and ministry. Rather than living in the Light of the City (Rev. 21:23) we seek and produce lesser lights. Rather than living in the Temple of the City (Rev. 21:22) we build our own temples. How foolish we are and how unfaithful are our shepherds!

 

We do not need to live like this.

 

You, dear pastor, can teach your people to live in the Holy of Holies…as you live in the Holy of Holies.

 

You, dear Christian, can learn to abide in the Vine and allow the Life of Christ to live in you and through you.

 

We all can cry out to Jesus to have mercy on us and restore His Temple, renew His Body, draw us to Himself in the Oneness of the Trinity. We can cry out to God to use us as broken bread and poured out wine to bring others to know Him through Jesus Christ.

 

If we are truly the Flock of the Good Shepherd, then we are already One in Him, why have we been taught to deny who we are? To deny our Oneness? To assume false identities?

 

Ah, what a foolish people we are…how loving our Good Shepherd is.

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (30)

 

 

Bonhoeffer emphasizes that the visible church-community must not be conformed to the world, but to Christ. At the bottom of page 229 he quotes Romans 12:2:

 

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed into a new form by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.”

 

Bonhoeffer writes that we have a “form” that is different form the world, and that “form” is Christ. We are “called to be ever increasingly transformed into the form…the form of Christ himself” (pp. 229 – 230).

 

“If it engages the world properly, the visible church-community will always more closely assume the form of its suffering Lord” (p. 230).

 

Is this true of the Western church? Of the professing church in the United States? Or have we embraced the culture of the world? Are we indistinguishable from American culture - from one of the cultures and movements now within American society? Are we colored red or blue or purple, rather than wearing the righteousness of Jesus Christ, white robes which can only be found at the Cross and in obedience and conformity to the Cross? Are we marked by the dollar sign of the American dream, or by the Cross of Jesus Christ?

 

With Paul, are we crucified with Christ? With Paul, have we been crucified to the world and has the world been crucified to us? (Galatians 2:20; 6:14).

 

Bonhoeffer teaches us that whatever we possess, we are to possess only through Christ…in Christ…and for the sake of Christ (p. 230). We are not to be prisoners of our possessions, we are to hold possessions in trust as stewards of Jesus Christ. Since we are free from possessions and from the world, we are “able to abandon the world whenever it prevents them from following their Lord (p. 230).

 

On pages 230 – 231 Bonhoeffer references ten verses dealing with our relationship with money and possessions, including, “But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires” (1 Tim. 6:6 – 9).

 

As I read these pages I was reminded of the second chapter of Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. Its title is “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing.” Tozer deemed our relationship to possessions so critical and foundational to our pursuit of God that he placed it right after Chapter One, it is something we need to deal with and settle, something we need to understand, we cannot serve God and also serve money and possessions (Mt. 6:24).

 

How do we reconcile the Bible’s treatment of possessions and our obsession with them? Do we live as a people who are not owned by money and materialism but rather by Jesus? Do we not measure our lives by what we have, by our investment accounts, by the opulence and attractiveness of our church buildings? Do we measure the lives of our children and grandchildren by their love for Jesus and others, or by their vocations and income?

 

Do we freely give to others – as families and as congregations? Are we placing the welfare of others before ourselves? Why do we raise funds for new building projects for our church campuses but not have the same (it should be a greater!) passion for raising funds to alleviate hardship and suffering in communities near and afar? Have we forgotten that we are to lay down our lives for others? (1 John 3:16; John 15:12 – 13).

 

Are we being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, or to the images of Wall Street, Hollywood, Nashville, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Silicon Valley, and the sports world?

 

Are we being formed into the image of the world, or of Jesus Christ?

Are we "assuming the life of our suffering Lord"?