CHAPTER FOUR THE ANOMALY OF THE CROSS Anomaly is defined by Webster as "departure from the regular arrangement, general rule, or usual method; abnormality." An example of anomaly is a black spot on a white sheet of paper. Much has been written in the philosophy of science concerning the role that awareness of anomaly plays in the formulation of scientific theory. Such awareness causes the scientist to experience discomfort with existing theory and this discomfort creates the energy necessary to search out evidence upon which to base a new theory that eliminates the anomaly. A similar phenomenon occurs in the life of every Christian trying to understand the meaning of the message presented in the Bible. No one encounters the God who revealed Himself in Holy Scripture and immediately grasps the full meaning of the message presented there. We learn to understand God as we grow in the knowledge of the teaching of Scripture. And we never comprehend that God because God is incomprehensible. But we do learn much about Him. At every stage in the process of learning we are constantly revising what we had previously learned to accommodate what we are presently learning. And we, like the scientist, are energized in our study by the awareness of the presence of anomaly. As we read the message in the Bible, we encounter stories and ideas that do not readily fit our preconceived understanding, our preconceived model, of God or His reality. We are moved by these stories and ideas to revise our understanding, constantly attempting to merge our point of view with the analysis of reality presented in Scripture. Science has spent much energy documenting the fact that scientists do not readily or naturally surrender theories that have been accepted as fact. When science held that the sun revolved around the earth, great resistance occurred when one suggested that the opposite was true. Only as the awareness of anomaly grew in the minds of scientists were they motivated to revise their theory. It is not an easy thing to surrender firmly held presuppositions, especially when those presuppositions are the foundation upon which our present peace of mind rests. But God's Word has a way of forcing us to change: as the Apostle Paul says, we are constantly being moved from "faith to faith" and from "glory to glory." While a student at seminary I had been taught that Union with Christ was foundational to everything that God did in the life of the believer. And I believed that as fact. Scripture communicated the message everywhere I looked. What I found to be anomalous was the fact that no teacher I could find, past or present, could explain how Union with Christ had occurred. That it had occurred was not doubted, but it was explained as a "mystery." And mystery was defined as that which theologians did not understand. I had no problem with the idea that there were some things in Scripture that teachers did not understand: what troubled me, what I saw as anomaly, was the fact that all evangelical Protestant teachers, past and present, taught that Scripture said we were not supposed to understand how our Union with Christ had occurred. When my professors explained the doctrine of mystic union to me, it seemed enormously peculiar at the time that God would go to the trouble to communicate tens of thousands of words designed to equip the man of God for all good works, such words clearly designed to explain virtually every aspect of the meaning of the life and work of Jesus Christ, and then omit telling us how that which was foundational, that which was the very bedrock of our faith--our Union with Christ--had occurred. The thought occurred to me that perhaps God had not omitted telling us how our Union with Christ had occurred, but that the teachers had simply failed to understand what God had taught through the Apostles. I felt shame that I had allowed an idea like that to cross my mind. I felt exactly the way a child feels when the child encounters evidence that a parent who has never been anything but loving and supportive and wise demonstrates evidence that they are less than perfect. There was a sense that I was being disloyal, rebellious. But still, the thought persisted. What if they were wrong? What if the mystery existed only because the good doctors had simply failed to grasp the meaning of the text? Was it possible that God did intend for us to understand how our Union with Christ had occurred? When the crisis of legalized abortion drove me into the deepest state of confusion I had ever experienced as a Christian, I ran to Scripture like a starving man who smells bread. Since I had been counseled that the doctrine of mystic Union with Christ held the answer as to how God could forgive my ever continuing collaboration in legalized abortion, I reviewed everything I had ever learned about what the Bible teaches about who Jesus Christ is; I read every thing I could find on the doctrine of Mystic Union. And as I reviewed the reality from Scripture's point of view, I found that my counselors were wrong. I did not find the answers I was looking for in the Doctrine of the Mystic Union with Christ as it is presented by Protestant theologians. There I found the most grievous error in the history of Protestant theological thought, error profound and grave because the doctrine of mystic Union, if believed, makes it impossible for a Christian to understand how their salvation occurred. I discovered this error when I received the knowledge that my Union with Christ is no mystery at all, and was never intended by God to be a mystery, but is the ever present fact that allows me to know without a shadow of a doubt that I am to inhabit the Body of Christ for eternity no matter what happens to me in this world. I write this now because if you are in Christ, you got in Christ the same way I did. If you don't know how you got in Christ, I suggest God intended for you to know, and furthermore gave you scripture precisely designed to equip you to know. ************************************ The rest of this book is committed to helping you see what I believe the Lord has shown me. If you glance at the pages that lie ahead, you will see that many words are required before I have had my say. There is a reason for this. A formal analysis of any idea in Scripture is no simple thing. Any reasonable methodology requires the subject under review to be examined as that subject is developed throughout the complete body of Scripture. To do anything other than this is to arrive at conclusion "out of context." If a study of any idea in Scripture is difficult, examining a foundational idea, or teaching, of Scripture is the most complicated work that a student of Scripture can become involved in. A foundational teaching is, by definition, woven into the very fabric of virtually every sentence in the Bible. Foundational ideas only become apparent as foundational when all the other ideas expressed in Scripture are compared in importance to the ideas finally determined to be foundational. Since the subject of our union with Christ is understood by virtually every theologian throughout the history of Christian thought to be a foundational teaching of Scripture, and since everything I have to say in the rest of this book (except for the Appendix) is related to the subject of our union with Christ, I am going to attempt to expose you to foundational ideas. To do this, I needed a system. Systematic theology came into being precisely because teachers understood that contextually accurate knowledge of the teaching of Scripture was impossible unless a comprehensive understanding of the message in Scripture was available to a student. For hundreds of years, theologians have been searching for a structure that would allow this comprehensive understanding to be easily delivered to Christians. Such a system has proven to be impossible to find. What was originally hoped to lead to THE system has evolved into a series of arbitrary methods called "systematic theology" within which the various themes developed within Scripture can be organized. This is my system. In the following chapter, I define what I believe is the foundational misunderstanding that, unless or until corrected, makes impossible an accurate understanding of what Scripture teaches about our union with Christ. In subsequent chapters, I take us into a review of Scripture as, I theorize, it would have been viewed, dissected, and understood by the Apostle Paul. Hopefully, at the end of the book you will have realized that, one way or the other, your union with Christ is a done deal, and that there is nothing in the universe that can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
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