Heavenly Minedness (75)

 

Continuing from our last post, before we consider “pure, disinterested love,” I’d like us to please ponder Hebrews 4:12 -13; 2 Peter 1:3 - 4;1 Peter 1:23; and James 1:18, 21, though our focus will be Hebrews 4:12 – 13.

 

1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18, 21; and 2 Peter 1:3 - 4 provide us with a context for Hebrews 4:12 – 13. It is helpful, even vital, to understand the “nature” of a thing if we are going to have some understanding of it, if we are going to know how to think about it. Yes, usually this understanding unfolds as a result of our thinking and experience, and often the more we ponder and engage the richer our understanding becomes – so understanding the essence, experiencing the essence, or at the very least engagement in some fashion is critical to our thinking and experience, to how we engage with a person, an animal, a thing, and how we see ourselves.

 

I will frankly say that the fact that most Christians, at least in the West, do not know who Christ is in them and who they are in Christ, is a toxic problem. They do not believe that Jesus Christ has placed a new nature within them, nor do they often have an understanding of the death – dealing activity of the “old man” or “old person” (see Romans 6) and of our need to see ourselves as “dead unto sin but alive unto God.” For all of our talk of new birth and being born again, we display little awareness of this glorious truth in Jesus Christ. We call people to come to Jesus Christ and then we teach them to live like sinners – we just want their sin cleaned up so it won’t be so bad – when Jesus calls us to lose our lives, we teach one another to save them.

 

In 1 Peter 1:23 Peter writes, “…for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God,” and then in 1:25 he writes, “the word of the Lord endures forever.” What is the “nature” of our new birth? It is the Word of God, the living seed of the Word of God. Kind produces kind and the Father through the Son brings many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10 – 13), the Father has purposed that the Lord Jesus Christ should be the “firstborn among many brethren,” (Romans 8:29). Christ is the Word of God (John 1:1) and He lives in us.

 

James tells us that, “In the exercise of His [the Father’s] will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.” Can we see the similarity here with 1 Peter? Can we see the activity of the Word of God, the “Word of Truth”? Also note, that as the Firstborn Son is a first fruit, so we collectively comprise the first fruits.

 

Then James tells us, “Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.” What does the phrase, “the Word implanted” say to you? The idea that the “Word implanted” is able to “save our souls” can be hard for us in the West to understand because we have reduced the concept of salvation to being saved from hell to go to heaven – this is most assuredly not the Biblical picture of salvation and our failure to understand this has led to anemia and toxicity within our souls and within the professing church.

 

Biblical salvation is holistically expansive and includes every area of life, both individually and collectively, and even includes the redemption of creation. The purpose, the trajectory of Biblical salvation for us as individuals and as our Father’s sons and daughters is koinonia, fellowship, communion with the Trinity (John chapters 13 – 17); it is no less than union with God and manifesting that union on this earth, right now, in this time and place – individually yes, but most especially as His Body, His Temple, His Bride, His Flock.

 

Heavenly – mindedness is looking for that City, it is not a “Jesus and me” proposition, for without my brothers and sisters, without that City, there is no fulness of fellowship with Jesus Christ. Yes, Jesus Christ died for me and gave Himself for me – and we see this in Galatians 2:20; but it was to bring “many sons to glory” that He came, and it is the Father’s desire and purpose that Jesus be “the Firstborn among many brethren.” Is God’s desire my desire? Is my Father’s heart my heart? Is the prayer of Jesus in John 17 my prayer and my purpose in living? O what a foolish people we are, how blind to the Way of our Father.

 

Back to James; as we receive the Word into our souls it works salvation, wholeness, holistic growth in Christ – because the Word becomes engrafted…its Nature works its way into us (can we note the similarity here with John 15:1ff?). Progressively we are transformed into His image so that we learn that we must abide in Jesus Christ and that without Him we “can do nothing” (John 15:5). We learn not only to say this, we learn to live it in Jesus Christ, we learn to draw our total life from Him.  

 

What do you see in 2 Peter 1:3 – 4? How do these verses relate to the ones we’ve pondered in 1 Peter and James?

 

We’ll pick this back up in our next post in the series.