Progressive Revelation

In the last post I celebrated 2 years of Alancetotheheart.  It has been a fun ride of progressive revelation.  I have found some themes and concepts have persisted over the two years but the backdrop of theology has obviously changed.  I like to find those threads and see how they have morphed as my mind has been renewed.  Paul said it quite well:

Rom 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you]. (AMP)

Check out how Francois translates this verse in the Mirror Translation:

Romans 12:2 Do not allow current religious tradition to mold you into its pattern of reasoning. Like an inspired artist, give attention to the detail of God’s desire to find expression in you. Become acquainted with perfection. To accommodate yourself to the delight and good pleasure of him will transform your thoughts afresh from within.

Fun stuff.

I was very much entrenched in typical western theology that embraced concepts like Penal Substitution, a persistent sin nature, a future salvation and destination doctrine.  Deep down inside however I knew “something wasn’t right.”  I know that if you are reading this post you too have doubts about those kinds of concepts and doctrines and dogmas as well.  Christ in you the hope of glory does not agree with those deceptive traditions.  He came to rescue not condemn. He came to save us from US not from God.  He set us completely free of Sin on the cross.  We all died to Adam and were raised again a new creation in Him.  He saved us on the cross and saves us now and will continue to save us from the darkness and blindness to a good good Father.  He didn’t die to get us a ticket to heaven but to bring us in union with Him into the Kingdom now, sitting right there in the Trinity of Love itself.  Everything everywhere in every way changed on the cross when Jesus took humanity and the cosmos into the dirt to be resurrected in Him as completely restored and reconciled.

I understand that we don’t see all of His glory in all of our junk or in all of the world today.  I really do get it.  I don’t live in candy land or drink the cool aid or have forgotten to take my medicine.  I really do see the darkness still all around us and even in us today.  We are still very blind to the goodness of God.  We still can’t quite soak in how amazing and loving and forgiving and merciful and abounding and caring and kind and beautiful and overwhelming and awesome our Father is right here and right now.  There is still much to be revealed in Jesus.  We have all of forever to see more of His glory manifest in our reality.  Still we don’t build theology and doctrine based on our circumstance instead of a reality of God that Jesus brings to us in His incarnation with us and our resurrection in Him.  Everything begins and ends with Him.  He said He was the alpha and omega.  He said stuff like this:

Matt 11:27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (ESV)

So I don’t know about you but I want to see what Jesus sees and know what Jesus knows and feel what Jesus feels and live the life of Jesus.  I want to be like Paul and declare that I MUST know Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  I want to say that it is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me.  Don’t you want that?  I know you do since Jesus lives in you.  That is really good news.  We are in Him and He is in us and He is in the Father and we are all included in the fullness of the godhead in the triune circle dance of His oneness.  We are so accepted and loved we have assurance to let go of our Adamic fallen thinking and embrace our minds of Christ.  We can put down our good-bad forbidden fruit and consume the bread of life.  We can be completely free of judging and judgment to drink deeply from the wine of the new covenant of forgiveness.  We are completely forgiven and so is everyone else.  We are a child of God and so is everyone else.  We are a new creation in Jesus and so is everyone else.  We are born from above in the resurrection of Jesus and so is everyone else.  They just don’t know it.  We just don’t believe it.  Don’t you think we should live like the gospel is true?  Don’t you think that the darkness has no chance to hide the goodness of God if we lived in the revelation of His finished work?  I think that is why He came don’t you?

Still it is a progressive revelation we are living in and from.  In our little baby steps we move from dark to light.  We step out of deception and into truth.  We let go of Greek pagan cosmology and take hold of the freedom in Jesus.  We are coming to know the truth and the truth is setting us free.

Like in the last post here are a few “themes” that have been consistent threads in the progressive revelation:

Righteousness.  I felt like we had missed something with regards to words like righteousness. I knew that it wasn’t an impersonal, distant, antiseptic, stainless steel, Roman jurisprudence kind of word. At the time I had no understanding of the whole Aristotle greek cosmology deception that seeped into the church doctrine years ago.  Still I wrote a few (many actually) posts about seeing righteousness through the lens of relationship.  I knew that the word described God’s perspective towards us, God’s acceptance of us and not some “jumping through perfect morality hoops” kind of word.  Check out “Robe of Righteousness” and “Robe of Righteousness Again” or maybe take a look at “Relationship not Religion (sin and lawlessness)” and of course the “I am Right!” series.

Now on this side of a progressive revelation this word is easy to understand.  Everything about our triune God of inclusion and acceptance is born out of Love and relationship.  He is defined by the Trinity concept.  He is three in one and one in three.  His identity is found in each other.  It is like a great competition between each of the godhead to see who can humble Himself (or Herself) to be lower than the next.  They are each a Kenosis of emptying to the edification of the other.  So righteousness is the acceptance of the other in relationship.  They are “right” together and “right” towards each other and “right” in their acceptance of each other.  Now in Jesus we have His righteousness.  Through the incarnation we are joined with the one who is always right with the Father.  We share in His rightness with the Father.  We can never again doubt our acceptance in His family because we are inexplicably joined to His family.  We are in Him and He is in us.  Check out “Interwoven Dance of Intimacy” and “Jesus Suit” for a few examples of the good news of our righteousness.

Another “theme” was surrender.  I was reading Andrew Murray and really enjoying his treatment of surrender.  The “dying to self” concept is powerful.  I could see the “religious” implications that are very harmful but I also saw the concept of “dying in our thinking” as the intended meaning of surrender.  This line of thinking took me to the garden and the powerful revelation of the real issue…forbidden fruit.  The good-bad broken judgment mechanism of our conscious had us running from God instead of embracing His love.  We needed to learn to surrender to His love.  So I wrote a few posts about surrender.  Check out “Surrendered to Love“, “Suppress or Surrender?” and “Survival or surrender?”  These were some of the very first posts on this site.

Now on this side of the revelation surrender is so easy to grasp.  We are surrendering to the truth.  The truth is our inclusion in Him.  He is in us and we get to live His vicarious life.  We are surrendering to the finished work of Jesus.  We are surrendering our minds to be renewed.  We are surrendering in trust to our minds of Christ.  We are surrendering our desperate need for control and human wisdom and deterministic thinking and Socratic methods and legal categories and instead embracing our union with Jesus.  In Him we know the Father.  To know the Father is eternal life.  To have eternal life is to surrender our own life.  Guess what?  2000 years ago we all lost our Adamic life on the cross and were born again into His life in His resurrection.  Check out “Jesus Judo Move” and “Fearfully Remade” and “Weeds and Seeds.”

Progressive Revelation.  That is our walk with Him.  To know the Father we must know the Son and to know the Son the Son must be revealed by the Father through the Holy Spirit.  Yes we have the “word of God” but we have a better “Word” in Jesus.  He reveals the Word in the word.  We have to be open and willing to let Him show us who He really is.  That is why we are who we are.  We are here to know our creator and embrace our Father and love our groom and walk with the Holy Spirit.  He is so good and so passionate about His kids that He will not let us go.  He holds us in the palm of His hand and nothing can snatch us away.  We may fight and kick and resist and rebel but God is too good to give up.

Yay God!

Lance