Long Weekend Quotes: Part C
If it has entered the heart of man, our thinking processes and concepts, then it is probably not an accurate representation of "heaven," of God's presence! God is so much bigger than our finite abilities to conceptualize that any images that we can conceive are but inadequate images which become idols.
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Would you want to participate in a "heaven" that was only what your mind and heart could conceive? I would not! I have very little imagination! The "heaven" that I could conjure up in my mind would be extremely boring! I am convinced that heaven is not boring. Is love boring? Is joy boring? Our meagre human perceptions of "heaven" would only lead to discontent. They are so static, so selfish, so mercenary, so materialistic, so space/time oriented, so inadequate!
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Man is made so as to only be content with God! That is why our human aspirations of heart and mind are no basis for revealing "heaven," as some authors have indicated.
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The character of God is the only basis for revealing "heaven." Heaven is the presence of God, acting as He always does, according to His character.
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God is an active God. His presence is always actively expressing His character in the out-going means of grace. Faith is our receptivity of His activity. God is love. Love is always active, extending out toward the other. There is no such thing as passive love; that is apathy! God is joy. Joy is always energetic and enlivening. Heaven's demeaner is that of humor and laughter and play and activity. Thus I repeat, "Religion knows nothing about heaven," as evidenced by its being so sour and dour and serious about itself, and so passive and inactive in loving others.
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Heaven is the presence of God, and subjectively considered, heaven is spiritual ecstasy. The word "ecstatic" is etymologically derived from two Greek words, ek meaning "out of," and stasis which comes from histemi meaning "to stand." It is not difficult to see that that which stands and is unmoving is "static". "Ecstatic" has to do with that which is "out of" the realm of the "static." There is no ecstasy in that which is static, for such is rigid, cold, hard, immovable, dead. Ecstacy is experienced only in that which is dynamic, i.e. alive, active, warm, moving and incomprehensible. Heaven is spiritual ecstasy in that it has to do with the dynamic presence of God in action.
Christian theology becomes a knowledge-based epistemological emphasis on the propositional truths of an ideological belief-system formed into orthodox doctrines and creedal dogmas, rather than the ontological expression of the very Being and character of God in Christ by the Spirit.
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When Christianity de jure is thus portrayed only as objectified justification, imputation, and reconciliation, then Christian living is inevitably cast in legalistic and moralistic ethical inculcations to attempt to behave in consistency with what you have been declared to be, and thus to justify God in demonstrating that He was indeed justified in justifying you. This in contradistinction to the de facto reality of the indwelling presence of the Righteous One, Jesus Christ (Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14), manifesting His life (II Cor. 4:10,11) in our behavior by divine grace.
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The Christian is also righteous by the fact of the reality of the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, actually living in him, and being allowed to live out His righteous character in his behavior.
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In terms of the practical outworking and outliving of the life of Jesus Christ in Christian behavior, it is the de facto reality of the indwelling Spirit of Christ that must be emphasized. Soon after the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, some of the post-reformation Catholic theologians, noting the almost exclusively objective de jure arguments of the Protestant theologians, surmised that if a Protestant Christian were ever to exhibit righteous behavior in practice such must of necessity have been activated by the self-effort of human performance by "works" (so abhorred by the Protestants), since the Protestants made no allowance for the internal dynamic of God's grace in a de facto expression of Christianity. It was a accurate indictment on Protestant theology, which has not been resolved by a balanced emphasis on the objective and subjective elements of Christ's work, even to this day.
Is a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" just a relation of our mental assent to an historical Jesus? Is a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" just an ideological relationship of belief based on the circumstantial evidence of reports that we can read in the Gospels of the New Testament? Is it possible to have an interpersonal relationship with an historical personage that lived hundreds of years ago? Is it possible to have a interpersonal relationship with a logical construct of theological tenets about God and His Son, Jesus Christ?
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It is important to understand that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is not just an objective relationship to the benefits that Christ allegedly made available by His historical actions of death, burial and resurrection. Protestant Christian religion, in particular, has tended to objectify the relationship of the Christian to God and Christ in a forensic, juridical and legal framework that posits the relationship as but the "justification" of a right relationship with God the Judge in the heavenly realm. As a corollary, the relationship of the Christian with God has been viewed as a static "reconciliation" that is no more personal that "reconciling" one's financial books.
posted by GBT at
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
