Walking Worthy of the Calling - Part II (10)

 

“…in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Ephesians 4:22 – 24.

 

If you are following this passage in your personal Bible, you may find that instead of the word “man” above, that your translation uses the word “self.” I see that the NASB and ESV both use “self,” while the NKJ maintains the word “man.” Since I use the NASB on a daily basis, and I consider the ESV on a par with the NASB, I am at a loss as to why they have both succumbed to thinking that is normally associated with the NIV and similar “translations.”

 

If Paul had wanted to use a word for “self” he would have done so, but he used the word “man.” There is an “old man” and a “new man” and this is quite different from an “old self” and a “new self.” There is enough about “self” in our society and in church, we don’t need to feed that monster. Salvation is not just about the individual, it is about us as a people; it is about coming out of one man and coming into another Man. It is about leaving a fallen creation and entering a New Creation. It is about leaving Adam and coming into Christ. (See Romans 5:12 – 7:6; 2 Cor. 5:14 – 21; 1 Cor. 15:20 – 49; Gal. 2:20; 6:11 – 16).

 

Translating the Greek word for man into English as “man” allows us to maintain this perspective, using the word "self” does not. Consider that in the first part of Ephesians Chapter 4 that we see the Body of Christ, one Man, “a mature man,” a Body with many members – this is a context in which we see individuals and a unified Body – the word “self” robs us of this dual vision.

 

Therefore, when I read that I am to “lay aside the old man,” I am to put off both the old creation to which I once belonged, as well as my individual participation in that creation – for I have had an individual “old man” living in a collective “old man.” As Paul teaches in Romans 5:17, we are now to “reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” No longer do we trace our lineage back to Adam, to that “first man…from the earth,” but rather to “the Second Man [who] is from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47).

 

In some measure this is as if we have gone from being citizens of one country to being citizens of another country, but not just citizens on paper; rather we have been given a replacement DNA – our old DNA has been put to death on the Cross and a new DNA has been given us in Jesus Christ; we are now “dead to sin and alive to God” (see Romans 6). We have been taken from being members of one people and made members of another people.

 

In Ephesians 2:1 – 10 we see that we have been individually brought from spiritual death to spiritual life (though I think there is also a corporate dimension here) in Jesus Christ, and then in 2:11 – 4:16 we see that we have also been brought into a new Temple, a New Man, a New Body. Then in 4:17ff we see how we are to live in this new Body, Man, Temple; how we are to relate to one another in Christ and in how we are to relate to the world-system around us, to that collective “old man” to which we once belonged. (See Colossians 3:1 – 17 for a similar trajectory).

 

How is it that God’s People do not know and live in these things? Salvation is so much more than being saved “from something,” it is being saved “to something,” to Jesus Christ and His Temple, His Bride, His Body, His People…for His glory. If we only knew the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ we would (hopefully) not have the preoccupation with ourselves that has become our center of gravity in the professing church. If we knew our Nature in Christ and actually learned to consider ourselves “dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11) we would begin to taste and live in “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21; see also Gal. 3:15 – 5:1).

 

The partial Gospel that many of us preach and teach and consume, is akin to Moses leading the people through the Red Sea only to abandon them on the other side – this is a tragedy.

 

Isn’t it time to learn to put off the old man and put on the new man, created in the image of Jesus Christ? (Rom. 8:28 – 39).

Walking Worthy of the Calling – Part II (9)

 

“…just as truth is in Jesus…” (Eph. 4:21).

 

“Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6).

 

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.” (John 4:23).

 

While we see many refractions of truth, some clearer than others, we only see the Truth in its purity and fulness in Jesus Christ, for it is only in Jesus Christ that we see “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God” (from the Nicene Creed).

 

Knowing the Bible is not enough, we can know the Bible, we can know our confessions and catechisms, we can know our statements of faith; and not know Jesus Christ, or we can know Him as infants rather than as mature men and women in Him. Knowing what is called “propositional truth” is not enough, having a “Christian” worldview is not enough; we must know Jesus Christ.

 

The scribes and Pharisees knew the Scriptures, yet Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” (John 5:39 – 40).

 

Jesus says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” (John 6:63). We can know what the Bible says and yet not know what the Bible says if the Holy Spirit does not make Christ alive to us through the Scriptures (see 1 Cor. 1:17 – 2:16 for Paul’s treatment of Biblical epistemology – of how we “know” the things of God). We can know the Scriptures according to “the flesh” or we can know the Scriptures through the Holy Spirit. We can say the right things and yet not know life in the Holy Spirit.

 

We can dot our theological “i”s and cross our theological “t”s and yet not live life in Jesus Christ, or again, we can be living as infants and not mature men and women.  We can say the truth in the sense of saying things that are true, but not live in the Truth, not live in the Person of Jesus Christ. Consider what John Owen writes:

 

“Whatever notional knowledge men may have of divine truths, as they are doctrinally proposed in the Scripture, yet – if they know them not in their respect of Christ as the foundation of the counsels of God – if they discern not how they proceed from him, and centre in him – they will bring no spiritual, saving light unto their understanding. For all spiritual life and light is in him, and from him alone.” John Owen, Christologia: Learning About Christ, Kindle edition, location 1885.

 

Owen is saying that if our knowledge is not centered in Jesus Christ that our understanding will remain in darkness, we will not have “saving light” in our understanding. In Acts 13:27 Paul points out that the people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize the Messiah “nor the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath.” Consider the image of people attending church every week, year after year, and hearing the Scriptures read to them week after week, and yet not “hearing the voice” of the Word, not seeing Messiah, the Christ. As Jesus says, “the flesh profits nothing.”

 

Dear friends, is this a picture of the professing church today? Are we seeking the illumination of the Holy Spirit as we read and ponder the Scriptures, or are we trusting in our natural human resources in our exegesis, teaching, and preaching? Do we fear the danger of trusting in ourselves?

 

As the Pharisees and scribes demonstrated, the Bible without the illumination of the Holy Spirit will profit us nothing, in fact, it may even be a danger for it raises our level of accountability - for to whom much is given, much is required. Unenlightened knowledge can deceive us into thinking we know something when we know nothing. Right doctrine does not produce right living, for right doctrine separated from the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ results in scribal Christianity – a tragedy in that, like the rich young ruler, we can be so close to the Kingdom of God…and yet so far away.

 

The Scriptures are like the 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz. We can either “see” the Scriptures in black and white, as the first portion of the movie was filmed, or we can “see” the Scriptures exploding in Technicolor, as the greater part of the movie was filmed. Of course, we can be further like the movie in that the film reverts to black and white in the end, with Dorothy and the others thinking that it was only a dream as a result of being hit on the head. This is like the pull of scribal Christianity when one of its members experiences the power and joy and illumination of the Holy Spirit – it wants us to think it was only a dream, not real, and that we need to come back and live in the religious world of black and white.

 

When the Word of God is illuminated within us we see the glory of the Word, the glory of Jesus, “glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14); we receive from His fulness, and “grace upon grace” (John 1:16). When the Word is living within us, we are partakers of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4) and we experience koinonia with the Trinity and God’s People (1 John 1:3).

 

“…if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus” (Eph. 4:21).

 

Are we hearing Christ? Are we being taught in Christ?

 

It is one thing to read words…it is another thing to hear them.

 

What are we hearing today?

 

John Owen Quotes

 Here are some selections from John Owen, worthy of meditation:

Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ, by John Owen

Quotes:

 

“For if our future blessedness shall consist in being where He is, and beholding of His glory, what better preparation can there be for it than in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel, unto this very end, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory?”

 

“He it is in whom our nature, which was debased as low as hell by apostasy from God, is exalted above the whole creation.” [Italics Owen].

 

“…but those who have received the light of faith and grace, so as rightly to understand the being and end of that nature whereof they are partakers, cannot but rejoice in its deliverance from the utmost debasement, into that glorious exaltation which it has received in the person of Christ. And this must needs make thoughts of Him full of refreshment unto their souls. Let us take care of our persons, - the glory of our nature is safe in Him. For – In Him the relation of our nature unto God is eternally secured. We were created in a covenant relation unto God. Our nature was related unto Him in a way of friendship, of likeness, and complacency.” [Italics Owen].

 

“Heaven and earth may pass away, but there shall never be a dissolution of the union between God and our nature anymore.”

 

“…this nature of ours is capable of this glorious exaltation and subsistence in God.” [Italics Owen].

 

“Our nature in Him is passed through these aspectable heavens, and is exalted far above them. Its eternal habitation is in the blessed regions of light and glory; and He has promised that where He is, there we shall be, and that forever.”

Walking Worthy of the Calling – Part II (8)

 The Christ

 

“But you did not learn the Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to put off the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” Ephesians 4:20 – 24.

 

“But you did not learn the Christ in this way…” That is, verses 17 – 19 are not how Paul’s readers were taught to know the Christ and live in the Christ.

 

If you are looking at your own Bible while reading this, you will notice that I have chosen to maintain the Greek definite article before “Christ.” I have done this because it is possible that we have a dual in-depth meaning with the word Christ, a meaning better seen with the definite article.

 

In Ephesians 4:11 – 16 we have a picture of the organic Body of Christ, a Living Body in which every joint and every member is giving to the rest of the Body, “building itself up in love” and growing up in all aspects into the Head, even Christ. We see “the Christ” as the Head in 4:15, and in 4:13 we read, “a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ.”

 

This “Body” that we see in 4:11 – 16 has the Christ as its Head, with the Christ as its Head this Body is known as the Body of the Christ. This is seen in 1 Corinthians 12:12:

 

“For even as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.” (NASB).

 

We know a body by the head and face of the body. I see Susan’s face on Susan’s head and I know that the body beneath the head and face are Susan’s; I see a head, face, and body and what I see I call “Susan.” This is so natural that we don’t even think about it, it is the way we live, it is the way we have always lived.

 

Yet, when it comes to seeing and understanding Jesus Christ and His Body we become blind men and women.

 

Let’s read 1 Cor. 12:12 again (noting that its context is the Body of Christ!) but this time with the definitive article that is in the Greek NT: “For even as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is the Christ.”

 

Now consider 1 Cor. 10:16 – 17: “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless koinonia [a sharing of life] in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break koinonia [a sharing of life] in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of one bread.”

 

If, when we approach the Lord’s Supper we are only thinking vertically, of the Head of Body; we are only thinking and meditating of one dimension of the blood and bread. The Table is sacramental and we receive His grace and life through both the Head of the Body and the members of the Body, through whom the Head pours His Divine Life.

 

“…what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have koinonia with us; and indeed our koinonia is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:3.

 

The Apostle John does not write, “so that you too may have koinonia with the Father and Son,” but rather, “so that you too may have koinonia with us.” Why? Because John and his brothers and sisters have koinonia with the Father and Son and therefore to have koinonia with John and his brothers and sisters is to have koinonia with the Father and Son. To be sure, as we read John’s letter, and as we read John’s Gospel, John directs our attention to koinonia with the Trinity, but we also see the nonnegotiable understanding that our koinonia with the Trinity and our koinonia with one another are a unity.

 

(On the foregoing see John 13:14, 20, 34-35; 15:12; 17:20-26; 1 John 2:7-11; 3:11 – 16, 23; 4:7 – 5:2).

 

Whether Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostal, or Protestant; if we do not understand the above then we do not understand the Nature of the Church, the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Trinity – how can we “be” and live who we are if we do not know who we are? How can we understand the nature of the person who sits next to us on Sunday morning, in a Sunday school class, or in a small group?

 

C.S. Lewis pointed out in The Weight of Glory, that if we really saw the glory of God in the person next to us that we’d want to fall down before him or her.

 

How can we speak of the Nature of Jesus Christ in the Incarnation and not teach the Nature of the Church – the ongoing Incarnation?

 

We see an example of this concept of Christ the Head and Christ the Whole (the latter term borrowed from Augustine) in Genesis with Jacob Israel. Here it is in a nutshell. Jacob has his named changed by Yahweh to Israel. When most of us read the name “Israel” in the Bible we think of a people, but that is not always the case, for the name Israel can also mean the individual Jacob. The name Israel began as a name for one person, but it also came to mean the name of a people all coming from Jacob’s 12 sons who in turn all came from Jacob-Israel. BUT, there is also a sense in which the people are a person for when Yahweh says, “Out of Egypt I have called My son,” we see the people Israel but we also see a person.

 

Ok, hang with me and look at Ephesians 4:13: “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” When we read “a mature man,” do we see a people or a person? A mature man speaks to us of a person, and this Person is the Christ who has many members, this is what we also see in 1 Cor. 12:12 and its context.

 

Note that Paul begins the movement of what we term “chapter four” by laying a foundation of unity in the Trinity: “…the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace…one body and one Spirit…one Lord one faith one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.” This is the foundation for all that follows, including what we see in Ephesians 4:17 – 5:21 (the passage we are considering in this series).

 

The best example I know for what it looks like to read and understand the Bible in this way of vision is Augustine’s Expositions on the Psalms, this is one of the great treasures that God has preserved for His Church.

 

While what you are reading may be new to you, it is not new to the Church for it reaches back into Genesis and is gloriously manifested in Revelation. This vision has continued throughout Church history, though at times it has been more of an underground river than a visible river. There is contemporary discussion of it today and a realization that we have lost an essential element, and I do mean essential, of our understanding and participation in the Eucharist.

 

Interestingly to me, my first glimpse of this was when I was with the Jesus People in California in the 1960s. As I reflect on this, it demonstrates how God can speak to those who read the Bible in a pristine fashion, in new wineskins. Since then I have found on more than one occasion folks in academia who write of subjects as if they were recovering insights from a bygone time, when I can look to people and groups I have known who knew and taught those very things as a way of life. This is not to say that we don’t need scholars who love Jesus Christ and His Word, we most certainly do. We need clarity in our thinking, we need precision, we need to see how our House is constructed, we need to understand how to live in the House – I guess in short, we need each other.

 

Yes, I understand that this is probably a new way of seeing to most readers (I have touched on this before); but let me assure you that Jesus Christ and His People are worth all that we have and all that we are. It is worth your time and energy and effort to ponder the glory of the Christ, the Temple, the Bride, the People of God.