HOW TRANSFORMATION WORKS

Greg Mullins spoke of governments of ‘closed doors and closed minds’. He was remarking on his past warnings to past governments. Warnings of fire and flood – the effects of climate change; warnings that he made as Chief Fire Commissioner. Warnings that the government had ignored because it did not suit it and did not want to hear the truth. There are Christians like this. They ignore the reality of The Greater Life because they have an investment in the lesser gospel/lesser life that they already have.

 
One of the implications of Paul’s statement, ‘The law is made for sinners,’ is that in the law we remain sinners. We cannot be whole persons as sons of the law. To think that we can be whole and holy by accumulating bits and pieces of virtue should be seen as the nonsense it is -  particularly when we have the personhood of our saviour to be our life. Christ our life is the living way to personhood, holiness and wholeness as sons and daughters of God.

 
CHRIST IS TRUTH IS LIFE
 
Our life in God is greatly enhanced by the truth, particularly when it is enunciated and explained by Godly theologians working in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Revelation exists to shine a light on life and reveal our possession of this life in Jesus Christ.

 
SHINES THE LIGHT
 
Revelation undoes the knots of false doctrine and re-establishes the simplicity and comprehensiveness of our life in Christ by resurrecting and clarifying truth that has been subverted by ‘other gospels’ and man’s penchant for legalism.

 
HE IS YOU
 
Paul wrote, ‘For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory’ Col 3.3,4 NIV.

 
Christ will appear at the end of the age. But He appears in you when you make the move from religion into oneness with Christ so that Jesus not only makes you one with God but He makes you one with yourself so that you become the son/daughter of God that you were predestined to be. Christ is increasingly revealed in us when we are born again – which is when we choose to move from religion into union with God in Christ.
 
NO SPLIT LIFE
 
Martin Davis writes, “The Doctrine of the Trinity is nothing more than an attempt to make sense of the fact that God has revealed himself in human history as "Father, Son and Holy Spirit."” Three persons ONE GOD… The classic statement of the Doctrine of the Trinity says that God eternally exists as "one Being in three Persons." The Doctrine of the Trinity teaches that God is both a unity, that is, God is "one," and that God is also a diversity, that is, God is "three."” (1) This is the Source of our ability as the church to be individuals in God while at the same time all of us being an expression of God.
 
NO DUALISM IN GOD
 
There is no dualism in the spirituality of Christ our life. Just union with God meaning that we have been joined to God in the manner in which the triune God is ‘joined’ to Godself in perichoretic union. This union reaches out in Christ and includes us in its communion. We are born again when we agree with Jesus that His oneness with God is ours.
 
New birth is not new morals or service. It’s a new you in your oneness with God.
 
You have an alpha and omega in Christ that reveals your glory as a son and God’s glory as our Father. You do this by being yourself in Christ. We are not talking about being like Christ. We mean that Christ is formed in us so that we take on His Spirit and manifest it as ourselves. This happens by the incarnation.
 
FORMED IN CHRIST
 
Paul writes, ‘My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you’ Gal 4.19 NIV.
 
SOCIAL ISSUE
 
The solution to male violence against women is not platitudes like ‘enough is enough’ or marches, or attempts at shaming, manipulation and social control. The means of becoming men of love and grace is Christ come in our inner being.
 
THEOSIS
 
Myk Habets observes of Thomas Torrance that “The incarnation forms the central context within which Torrance works out the concept of theosis. The Christological aspects of theosis in Torrance’s theology highlight the fact that God in Christ has achieved reconciliation and communion between God and humanity (theosis), first in the person of the incarnate Son, and then through the Son (by the Holy Spirit) in the redeemed. This is highlighted through articulating the homoousion*, the hypostatic union#, the vicarious humanity of Christ %, and the assumption of humanity into the life of God in, though, or by Christ.”
 
INCLUDED
 
The drawing of ourselves into Christ’s life means that we have become included in the communion of the trinity. We have received the healing of our being and our spirit, soul and body have been made one with our being in Christ. Similarly as the community of faith in Jesus we can absorb the qualities of the trinity and are ignited with the capacity  not only to be a unified self but a self who can live in community with others with love and joy.
 
COMMUION AND COMMUNITY
 
Sharing in the divine nature by means of the law is a nonsense. The law is an abstraction and an artifact of living in the knowledge of good and evil. Our life is in Christ. We share in the divine nature as we invite Him to be for us and become us by the Spirit.
 
The ability to be the community of Christ happens as we invite the triune God to be our life so that the oneness that is God becomes the self that is in harmony with itself and be the  self who is set free to embrace others in the oneness that is us on account of God. “I in them and you in me--so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” John 17.23 NIV.
 
(1)    Martin Davis. A window into the Father Heart of God.P11,12.
 
*Jesus is one substance with the Father and wholly God.
# The hypostatic union is the mysterious joining of the divine and the human in the one person of Jesus.
% The Vicarious humanity of Christ.