Gestalt

More and more I am hesitant to share my big picture thoughts, yet my heart’s physical tingling provides such awareness of time, that I must wrestle with what I will leave behind from my morning reflections.

All my life I have been exposed to the Judaeo-Christian faith, a foundational benefit many now have missed. Yet, the deeper I study scripture, so as to develop may own theology (working out my salvation with fear and trembling) rather than simply the opinion of others, the more I relate to the prophets of old who sensed God doing a new thing, counter in some ways to all they had believed.

Then suddenly in a manger in Bethlehelm and later on a hill called Calvary, this revolutionary transformation lived itself out in a way that drove devoted students of Judaism such as Paul, to kill if need be, to defend their faith. Of course we all know how that ended up!

Yet, here we are as Christians in 2019 A.D. with a massive divide in our theology, demonstrated at least in our definitions of justice, in some ways contrary to both the Old and the New Testament. Micah, to paraphrase verse 6:8, cried out, “What does the Lord require of you? Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly” yet the Body of Christ in America surely struggles with what that now means. Some offer religious ceremony and an escapism mentality, empowered by political might; while others, relative to my “upbringing,” employ full abandonment of any personal moral obligation! This again sounds much like the day into which the Christ was born.

Of course, just as the Jews looked for a Messiah, Christians have made a religion out of Jesus, seemingly with full loss of the power of Christ! Not to speak of brutal wars that have nurtured radical Islam.

Perhaps it’s not a new thing that God is up to but a return to the One thing that God is, and that Christ was in Jesus? If Christ has fully become man in Jesus, as I believe, then the resurrection of Jesus was evidence enough that we too will one day be like Christ, ushered into a realm we have lost all grasp of in our not so subtle efforts to convince others of the religion we call Christianity, as opposed to the Way of God?

“Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all” (I Corinthians 15:24-28).

I realize how I may sound to some, and am fully aware that they sawed Isaiah asunder!

In summary, when “spiritual death”, the enemy of God, has been fully dealt with, Christ, who became fully human in Jesus, will hand over His Kingdom to God and remain fully man and we as “men” will be at last fully Christ in God!