Christ in Context

Posted by miltrodriguez in Christ, Christian Life, Church Life But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak of His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” John 16: 13 – 15 One of the results of the fall is that our minds now have a strong tendency to taking ideas, concepts, and even persons, and then chopping them up and pulling them out of their proper context. For example, we have done this with Jesus Christ Himself. The Segmented Christ We have taken Christ and chopped Him up into little pieces. I have written about this previously in an article called The Holistic Church. We take a slice out of Christ and then make it everything. We have done this with just about every aspect of the person and work of Christ. For example, we have taken evangelism, gifts, healing, miracles, social action, deliverance, love, peace, joy and many other aspects of Him and taken them out of their proper context (Christ Himself) and then blown them up to be everything. Yet our glorious Christ is all of these things and so much more! But that is what the fallen, un-renewed mind does. So our revelation and life experience must shift to the whole Christ so that we can express the fullness of Christ. But what is the context of Christ Himself? Seeing Christ in His Environment This is moving to another mountain altogether. It all begins with “seeing,” that is, revelation of this Christ within His context. Seeing all of the aspects of Christ as all parts of the whole Christ is one thing (and it is wonderful), but what about seeing the context of this Christ Himself? Did you know that Christ has His own context, His own environment that He lives in all the time? Do you realize that we have done the same “splicing” of Christ out of His context as we have done with the many aspects of Christ? So exactly what is the context for the Son of God? It’s simple; the context for Christ is God Himself! What is His environment? Where does He live? He lives inside of the Father through the Holy Spirit (See Jn. 17). In other words, the context for Christ is the Triune God or Godhead. That’s His native habitat. He came from and went back to God (Father, Son, Spirit). He never has nor will He ever live “one solitary life”! He is not a lone individual. Even while on the earth, He was living in, by, through, and to His Community – the Triune God. He lives in the glorious context of Community life. His life doesn’t even make sense outside of the fellowship of the Father and the Spirit. Just read the gospel of John and you will see this very clearly, that is, if you are really looking. The One Dimensional Christ You could say that seeing Christ the way that we normally see Him is like seeing Him one-dimensionally. People are really into 3D movies nowadays. Why? Because now, instead of just watching the film with height and width, you can actually see depth! What a difference depth makes. I personally dislike those funky glasses. We have been viewing Christ one-dimensionally. Yet He is really a three-dimensional Lord. He is one with the Father and Spirit. Three dimensions? Well, actually much more . . . three Persons! Yet each one of these Persons is unlimited in Their vastness. And the three unique and unlimited Ones are even greater than that because of Their oneness. The oneness of God is not just a doctrine or theology, but it is an actual life that has been lived out for eternity. Jesus called this life – eternal life (Jn. 17:3). This is the life of oneness, the life of eternal fellowship, the life of community. If you will sit down one day and read through the gospel of John chapters fourteen through seventeen, you will see it more clearly. The Son is part of the fellowship or community. We could call this community the divine fellowship. When he became a man and lived on this earth he was still living in and by this divine community. He told us that He lived by the life of His Father (Jn. 6:57). At His baptism the Father spoke from heaven and the Spirit descended as a dove. He cast out demons by the Spirit. The words He spoke came from the Father. The three divine Persons of the Trinity were working in tandem the whole time. Three Dimensional Church Life Now this divine fellowship and community that is shared within the Godhead has everything to do with us as believers. The Lord didn’t just share these things with the disciples to give them some new radical theology. Even though as Jews they didn’t even believe in a Triune God! What He was sharing in these chapters of John’s gospel was the actual foundation of the eternal life that He was giving them. This life would soon be in them and they would learn to live by this life. This eternal life is nothing less than the very same life that energizes the community of the Godhead. “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Him whom You have sent, Jesus Christ” (Jn. 17:3). “That which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn. 1:3). This life, this community life, is not only the model for the church. It is also the very life by which the church lives. This fellowship within the Triune God is the life by which He wants to live in and through the believers. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). And we are in Him. We are not in Him just as some kind of ethereal vague theory. We are in Him so that we can fellowship (actually participate) in that life. We are in Him so we can fellowship but also so we can express. He wants us, as the corporate body of Christ, to express the actual community life within God Himself! He wants that life to be our lifestyle. Our Context Just as Christ has a context in the life of the Triune God, so do we. Our context as believers is Christ Himself. And that context is corporate to the core. We all are in Christ by the Spirit and Christ is in the Father. And the Father is in the Son. Isn’t that a wonderful place to be?