How many become one.
09/July/2008 10:29 Filed in: Weekly Column
Volume 10, Issue 27
PDF copy
Does the great indicative question, “Who is Jesus Christ?” have any relevance in the 21st century world? To most people the answer is probably “No.”
By that statement we also believe that the great imperative of “Who Jesus Christ is!” really has no meaning either. How wrong we are, by dismissing the first question we become fools about the reality of the nature of the second.
However everyone who has ever lived in history someway is bound by, “Who Jesus is.” but instead today we wonder if the price of gasoline will ever quit rising. We never stop to think that the two concepts might be related: High gas prices – Jesus Christ.
This seems to set another talking points tension, but there is really much more at stake here than political spin. What we are really discussing is to mutually exclusive paradigms, which lead to totally divergent worldviews.
The first paradigm states that our morality is determined by our nature. The second states that morality determines our nature.
The current world majority position, including and especially in the United States is that we are by nature good people and as a consequence left to our own devices we will produce a moral culture, if we all work together, on, and so on.
The more complex minority position is that only inwardly moral people can produce a moral and just nature. However this position does not define inward morality necessarily as natural, but in fact human nature is immoral. This is basically theologically an Augustinian and Christian view of the nature of man. The Bible states that only inwardly moral people in the world rely exclusively on the morality of Jesus Christ as imputed to them as the basis for any merit on their part.
If this second position, that inward imputed morality determines a good outward nature is an absolute, then attempts designed to produce morality from the inherit goodness of human nature is bound to fail.
So gas prices continue to rise because basically evil people are trying to immorally make as much money as they possibly can, simply because they can, as is their right as distinct human beings. As we are finding out this does not make for a stable human society, nor does there seem to be anyone, who is credited with being a natural leader, have a solution to the problem. That is simply because implied goodness is not real goodness. What we have artificially defined as goodness is really evil, or in another archaic term sin.
What really defines our world then really is not us in the absolute sense, but our view of the nature of the world. Natural nature is defined either by an atheistic nature in which God does not exist, or a divine nature where God exists in some manner and is either actively or passably involved in the time – space, matter continuum.
These two natures of nature are not really discussed, but are the basis of all views of reality. It is interesting that the vast majority of people in the United States believe in God as a Supreme Being, however when it comes to application they believe in really an atheistic nature of the universe, and they never seem to question their basic life assumptions.
There is one section of the Bible that has been used in historic commentary on the church age more than any other. I am referring of course to chapters two and three of the Book of Revelation. These seven churches are used as typology both in a specific time frame and across the church age.
For example every exposition I have ever heard by a pastor in a church makes it clear the church in Philadelphia represents his specific church. While my experiences are far from a scientific survey, if this were indeed true, the church and also society would not be in the mess we now find ourselves.
The most misinterpreted verse in the Bible is also found in these Revelation churches, that being in the message to the church of Laodicea (Revelation 3:20 in bold text below). The context of this passage has nothing to do with personal evangelism at all. It is not about Jesus standing at the door of your heart and you need to ask Him in. This passage is about the church, understand the church, and the eating there refers to the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Eucharist. This meal has significant and eternal meaning only in the historic context of who Jesus Christ is.
"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Revelation 3:14-22
In the historic context over time, the church in Laodicea is also characteristically known as the church of the last days. In my lifetime I have literally seen this section essentially fulfilled in the evangelical church in America.
I was planning on substituting a name for Laodicea, with something like the Life Giving Community Fellowship, but I realized that perhaps there truly is a Life Giving Community Fellowship out there somewhere in the church world and that may still preach the Gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected. In doing so, I would also seem to let others off the hook, because readers would self-righteously assume that I was not speaking of their Philadelphia assembly. This section does specifically focus on their wishful thinking Philadelphia church.
“We work very hard to make our message relevant to those who may come to a Sunday service and get saved.”
This of course begs the question into what and from what. If the Jesus of the Bible, and Revelation chapter one, is not present at your Laodicean church, you are preaching a false gospel and to put it bluntly you are not really a church because you are not willing to be disciplined into preaching the historic Christian gospel. This discipline of course can come either through the work of the Holy Spirit or some kind of denominational or nondenominational structure.
The church of Laodicea is rebuked because its relevance is worldliness, plain and simple. As a consequence the only potential voice of substantial change in the world, has lost it’s voice. It may sell millions of books and DVDs, and may be viewed on television weekly by millions or even billions but it is not a true church. This “church” is really an expensive humanistic self help center, of really no eternal influence or value.
This brings us back to the question asked at the beginning, “Who is Jesus Christ?”
If Jesus is just a life coach to a new and more prosperous life, society, as we know it is on the verge of a precipitous collapse. Any life coach, by any name is not going to save us from the mess we have created.
Furthermore we are not going to save ourselves by human will and effort. That is especially true in the green, environmental, global warming, cap and trade, salvation fellowship (gegwcatsf).
So what would happen if many – most churches would open the door and let Jesus back in?
We could again see positive change within society and the preterist Christian eschatology might again show some value. But to fully understand this opportunity there is ample evidence from the history and the blessings of the United States of America.
The motto of the United States is the Latin, E Pluribus Unum: out of many, one. Saturday we posted references to a report by the Bradley Project by the same name. This conservative report states that America is in danger of losing it’s national identity because of the elevation of self at the expense of the larger community. Both the whole report and the summary are available through the blog post and under the Resource Tab.
What the report did not say however, is E Pluribus Unum, is really just another way of saying Unity in Diversity. Unity in Diversity is a sound and well-accepted description of the Christian Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Therefore, what the founders of the American republic (not democracy) had in mind was clearly and experiment in the practical application of Christian theology, not Christian values and piety, in the formation and the continual operation of a common God ordained natural government.
Many say that most of the Founding Fathers were devout Christians and we need to get back to those good moral roots. However that puts American history entirely in the modern evangelical Laodicean perspective and completely misses the underlying gospel’s absolute truth. That truth being that just as there are seven churches mentioned in these chapters of Revelation, God can have millions and billions of unique churches and all of them are one because “Who is Jesus Christ?” or as we said “Who Jesus Christ is!”
Therefore contrary to what you might read in the E Pluribus Unum report, as valuable as its common information might be, America, the United States of America, is really an experiment in applied Christian theology and it worked and is still working.
The threat to the American experiment does not come from external terrorists, nor does it come from greedy commodity speculators, oil prices, subprime mortgages, or other outward problems. The threat to America comes from abandoning her theological absolute principle that diverse people (both religious and secular) can become one nation if their values are build on the Biblical revelation of God and Jesus Christ.
Even more interesting for America to continue to work properly, people don’t have to be Christians, or Jews, or even Deists for that matter, all they need to understand is that the American experiment was and is based upon an applied theological construct.
Now this is a relevant application that should warm the heart of any evangelical pastor. You don’t have to manipulate people to get them to believe in Jesus, especially because that reoccurring arm-twisting doesn’t work over time. What you need to do is to focus upon unity in diversity not in just the church, nor just in society, nor just in natural creation, the Christian Trinity has it all worked out, you just have to proclaim the message, that Jesus died for sinners and was resurrected for your justification, and God will do the true heavy lifting.
Furthermore that message is equally relevant simultaneously in church and in the world at large. The only people who are really going to be upset are atheists and those without faith in anything or anyone other than themselves. That is still a minority, but a minority with political power and media voices well beyond their numbers.
The easily understood reality, to anyone with an open mind, is the link between Unity in Diversity and E Pluribus Unum. No matter how you describe it, this imperative principle has worked well for over two hundred years. This makes the United States the oldest representative government on earth and the model for more truly representative governments than the world has ever seen in all of history.
The only counter argument that atheists may attempt to make is that they are trying to make democracy better than it how it currently exists. Most of this will require some sort of socialist – communist elitist agenda, of which there is little if any empirical evidence for doing anything of lasting cultural value.
As we work in the common sector to reestablish the measurable standards of E Pluribus Unum, our ills will diminish because the God who created the universe “don’t make no junk.” A country modeled on His personality “ain’t going to be no junk either.” That should not be that difficult to understand. It is just that many people will not want to accept that absolute reality. They are too absorbed in building their own estate in hell.
So the many can become one, which will occur not through human efforts, programs, and wisdom. It will come about by the church adopting the imperative of, “Who Jesus Christ is.” That American theological experiment is not over yet, because God is not dead, sleeping, or out to lunch. It is just that people have been looking in the wrong places for a few years and we are now paying that price.
To put the truth of this Christ centered imperative in the broadest common indicative context of how many become one: “We are all in this together, E Pluribus Unum!”
That is the only hope on which a just and moral future can be established and your imperative application, today, tomorrow and for the rest of your life.
PDF copy
Does the great indicative question, “Who is Jesus Christ?” have any relevance in the 21st century world? To most people the answer is probably “No.”
By that statement we also believe that the great imperative of “Who Jesus Christ is!” really has no meaning either. How wrong we are, by dismissing the first question we become fools about the reality of the nature of the second.
However everyone who has ever lived in history someway is bound by, “Who Jesus is.” but instead today we wonder if the price of gasoline will ever quit rising. We never stop to think that the two concepts might be related: High gas prices – Jesus Christ.
This seems to set another talking points tension, but there is really much more at stake here than political spin. What we are really discussing is to mutually exclusive paradigms, which lead to totally divergent worldviews.
The first paradigm states that our morality is determined by our nature. The second states that morality determines our nature.
The current world majority position, including and especially in the United States is that we are by nature good people and as a consequence left to our own devices we will produce a moral culture, if we all work together, on, and so on.
The more complex minority position is that only inwardly moral people can produce a moral and just nature. However this position does not define inward morality necessarily as natural, but in fact human nature is immoral. This is basically theologically an Augustinian and Christian view of the nature of man. The Bible states that only inwardly moral people in the world rely exclusively on the morality of Jesus Christ as imputed to them as the basis for any merit on their part.
If this second position, that inward imputed morality determines a good outward nature is an absolute, then attempts designed to produce morality from the inherit goodness of human nature is bound to fail.
So gas prices continue to rise because basically evil people are trying to immorally make as much money as they possibly can, simply because they can, as is their right as distinct human beings. As we are finding out this does not make for a stable human society, nor does there seem to be anyone, who is credited with being a natural leader, have a solution to the problem. That is simply because implied goodness is not real goodness. What we have artificially defined as goodness is really evil, or in another archaic term sin.
What really defines our world then really is not us in the absolute sense, but our view of the nature of the world. Natural nature is defined either by an atheistic nature in which God does not exist, or a divine nature where God exists in some manner and is either actively or passably involved in the time – space, matter continuum.
These two natures of nature are not really discussed, but are the basis of all views of reality. It is interesting that the vast majority of people in the United States believe in God as a Supreme Being, however when it comes to application they believe in really an atheistic nature of the universe, and they never seem to question their basic life assumptions.
There is one section of the Bible that has been used in historic commentary on the church age more than any other. I am referring of course to chapters two and three of the Book of Revelation. These seven churches are used as typology both in a specific time frame and across the church age.
For example every exposition I have ever heard by a pastor in a church makes it clear the church in Philadelphia represents his specific church. While my experiences are far from a scientific survey, if this were indeed true, the church and also society would not be in the mess we now find ourselves.
The most misinterpreted verse in the Bible is also found in these Revelation churches, that being in the message to the church of Laodicea (Revelation 3:20 in bold text below). The context of this passage has nothing to do with personal evangelism at all. It is not about Jesus standing at the door of your heart and you need to ask Him in. This passage is about the church, understand the church, and the eating there refers to the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Eucharist. This meal has significant and eternal meaning only in the historic context of who Jesus Christ is.
"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Revelation 3:14-22
In the historic context over time, the church in Laodicea is also characteristically known as the church of the last days. In my lifetime I have literally seen this section essentially fulfilled in the evangelical church in America.
I was planning on substituting a name for Laodicea, with something like the Life Giving Community Fellowship, but I realized that perhaps there truly is a Life Giving Community Fellowship out there somewhere in the church world and that may still preach the Gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected. In doing so, I would also seem to let others off the hook, because readers would self-righteously assume that I was not speaking of their Philadelphia assembly. This section does specifically focus on their wishful thinking Philadelphia church.
“We work very hard to make our message relevant to those who may come to a Sunday service and get saved.”
This of course begs the question into what and from what. If the Jesus of the Bible, and Revelation chapter one, is not present at your Laodicean church, you are preaching a false gospel and to put it bluntly you are not really a church because you are not willing to be disciplined into preaching the historic Christian gospel. This discipline of course can come either through the work of the Holy Spirit or some kind of denominational or nondenominational structure.
The church of Laodicea is rebuked because its relevance is worldliness, plain and simple. As a consequence the only potential voice of substantial change in the world, has lost it’s voice. It may sell millions of books and DVDs, and may be viewed on television weekly by millions or even billions but it is not a true church. This “church” is really an expensive humanistic self help center, of really no eternal influence or value.
This brings us back to the question asked at the beginning, “Who is Jesus Christ?”
If Jesus is just a life coach to a new and more prosperous life, society, as we know it is on the verge of a precipitous collapse. Any life coach, by any name is not going to save us from the mess we have created.
Furthermore we are not going to save ourselves by human will and effort. That is especially true in the green, environmental, global warming, cap and trade, salvation fellowship (gegwcatsf).
So what would happen if many – most churches would open the door and let Jesus back in?
We could again see positive change within society and the preterist Christian eschatology might again show some value. But to fully understand this opportunity there is ample evidence from the history and the blessings of the United States of America.
The motto of the United States is the Latin, E Pluribus Unum: out of many, one. Saturday we posted references to a report by the Bradley Project by the same name. This conservative report states that America is in danger of losing it’s national identity because of the elevation of self at the expense of the larger community. Both the whole report and the summary are available through the blog post and under the Resource Tab.
What the report did not say however, is E Pluribus Unum, is really just another way of saying Unity in Diversity. Unity in Diversity is a sound and well-accepted description of the Christian Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Therefore, what the founders of the American republic (not democracy) had in mind was clearly and experiment in the practical application of Christian theology, not Christian values and piety, in the formation and the continual operation of a common God ordained natural government.
Many say that most of the Founding Fathers were devout Christians and we need to get back to those good moral roots. However that puts American history entirely in the modern evangelical Laodicean perspective and completely misses the underlying gospel’s absolute truth. That truth being that just as there are seven churches mentioned in these chapters of Revelation, God can have millions and billions of unique churches and all of them are one because “Who is Jesus Christ?” or as we said “Who Jesus Christ is!”
Therefore contrary to what you might read in the E Pluribus Unum report, as valuable as its common information might be, America, the United States of America, is really an experiment in applied Christian theology and it worked and is still working.
The threat to the American experiment does not come from external terrorists, nor does it come from greedy commodity speculators, oil prices, subprime mortgages, or other outward problems. The threat to America comes from abandoning her theological absolute principle that diverse people (both religious and secular) can become one nation if their values are build on the Biblical revelation of God and Jesus Christ.
Even more interesting for America to continue to work properly, people don’t have to be Christians, or Jews, or even Deists for that matter, all they need to understand is that the American experiment was and is based upon an applied theological construct.
Now this is a relevant application that should warm the heart of any evangelical pastor. You don’t have to manipulate people to get them to believe in Jesus, especially because that reoccurring arm-twisting doesn’t work over time. What you need to do is to focus upon unity in diversity not in just the church, nor just in society, nor just in natural creation, the Christian Trinity has it all worked out, you just have to proclaim the message, that Jesus died for sinners and was resurrected for your justification, and God will do the true heavy lifting.
Furthermore that message is equally relevant simultaneously in church and in the world at large. The only people who are really going to be upset are atheists and those without faith in anything or anyone other than themselves. That is still a minority, but a minority with political power and media voices well beyond their numbers.
The easily understood reality, to anyone with an open mind, is the link between Unity in Diversity and E Pluribus Unum. No matter how you describe it, this imperative principle has worked well for over two hundred years. This makes the United States the oldest representative government on earth and the model for more truly representative governments than the world has ever seen in all of history.
The only counter argument that atheists may attempt to make is that they are trying to make democracy better than it how it currently exists. Most of this will require some sort of socialist – communist elitist agenda, of which there is little if any empirical evidence for doing anything of lasting cultural value.
As we work in the common sector to reestablish the measurable standards of E Pluribus Unum, our ills will diminish because the God who created the universe “don’t make no junk.” A country modeled on His personality “ain’t going to be no junk either.” That should not be that difficult to understand. It is just that many people will not want to accept that absolute reality. They are too absorbed in building their own estate in hell.
So the many can become one, which will occur not through human efforts, programs, and wisdom. It will come about by the church adopting the imperative of, “Who Jesus Christ is.” That American theological experiment is not over yet, because God is not dead, sleeping, or out to lunch. It is just that people have been looking in the wrong places for a few years and we are now paying that price.
To put the truth of this Christ centered imperative in the broadest common indicative context of how many become one: “We are all in this together, E Pluribus Unum!”
That is the only hope on which a just and moral future can be established and your imperative application, today, tomorrow and for the rest of your life.