CHAPTER ELEVEN
RIGHTEOUSNESS THROUGH UNION WITH CHRIST
At this point I can begin to explain to you why I called the Church's exegesis of "Eloi, Eloi, Lamasabachthani" one of the most grievous errors committed by orthodoxy in the history of the Church.
It is a grievous error because it utterly destroys our ability to perceive the actual union that exists between Jesus Christ and those who believe in Jesus Christ.
Nothing is more important to God's people than our union with Christ. Now that we have reviewed how utterly impotent we are to conform ourselves in obedience to God's commands, the importance of our union with Christ should be clearly in view. Without this union with Christ, our relationship to God's word, the Holy Scripture, is exactly the same relationship enjoyed? by the Pharisees. Outside of our union with Christ, there is nothing but condemnation from God to be found in the words of the Bible. But, in Christ, we find peace, and joy, and gentleness--all the fruits of the Spirit of God.
Review, if you will, all that I told you about what Protestant theologians teach about the meaning of Jesus' cry on the cross and see if you can see a problem. I'll give you a hint: if God, the Father, turned His face away from God, the Son, separated Himself from the Son at the exact moment in space and time when the Son took upon Himself the sins of the world, does it alter what we can perceive about the attributes possessed by the Son at that precise moment in time? In other words, can we logically ascribe the attributes of God, the Father, to God, the Son?
One of the fundamental tenets of the doctrine of the Trinity as it has evolved throughout history is the idea that all the attributes of God are possessed by each Person of the Godhead equally. If omnipotence can be ascribed to the Father, it also can be ascribed to God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. The same can be said of all the attributes of God. While the Bible teaches that there are clear distinctions among the Persons of the Godhead, each Person equally possesses an identical essence. For this reason we can speak of God as Trinity in Unity or as a unity that is triunal. To abandon this understanding is to rupture the Godhead and fall into several trains of thought that have bedeviled the Church for over two thousand years.
As we review what the Apostle Paul said in his attempt to eradicate the leaven of the Pharisees from God's people, keep in mind the fact that at the pivotal moment in history, the moment when our union with Christ occurred, Protestant orthodoxy has erected a model of Jesus on the cross, and in that model, teachers lead us to believe that Jesus is separated from the Father. As we seek to understand how God saved us in Christ Jesus, our insight into what happened when Jesus died on the cross provides the beginning, middle, and the end of such understanding.
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Paul began to eradicate the leaven of the Pharisees by describing another way of finding righteousness with God, a way that did not depend on obeying the commands in God's word. "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."
There is one event in the history of the world that has pivotal significance for a Christian, the picture we hold in mind of that event determines exactly what our job will be in the kingdom of God. That event is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. All of us understand that our righteousness, our justification, our sanctification, our salvation, our eternal life--everything and anything pertaining to our relationship with the God revealed in Holy Scripture--hinges on the meaning of that event in reality. What actually happened there is the most important question that can ever be asked by any person on earth. And all of us Christians understand that the answer we have received that explains the meaning of Christ's crucifixion, the answer that created the picture we hold in our mind, is the answer that has ushered us into the kingdom of God.
What does Paul believe happened the day Christ was crucified? He summarizes his understanding of how we became righteous this way: "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" In light of everything we heard Paul saying about the purpose of the law in the last chapter, I think you can understand something of what Paul was feeling when he stated those words. In that statement Paul defined and summarized not only everything he understood about righteousness but also everything he understood about the meaning of the gospel. I am persuaded that he understood that statement to be an exultation, a tremendous shout of glory to God and a cry of defiance in the face of Satan.
Imagine if you will that when Paul uttered those words he actually perceived the reality that the words defined. Imagine how Paul would have felt if he perceived that he had actually died--not just to sin, but to the world, the flesh, and the devil. Imagine what joy would have been propelling those words outward. If you can imagine that, I believe you are sharing in the mind and heart of Paul as he uttered those words. Paul actually believed that he had died! The purpose of the law had been fulfilled!
"Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Here is what historic orthodoxy has called the "mystic union with Christ." Paul clearly meant for us to believe that we had died with Christ, been buried with Christ and raised with Christ. In fact, our being united with Christ in his death was a prerequisite to our being united with him in the resurrection. One followed the other. Because we died when Christ died, the penalty we owed to God for our sins was fulfilled. Because we were in Christ, His righteousness could be imputed to us. When Christ rose from the dead, we too rose, never to die again. The fact that Paul intended for us to believe these things actually happened dictated that subsequent Christian theologians formulate the doctrine of Union with Christ. The fact that the Church did not understand how that union occurred left the Church no choice but to call it a "mystic union."
I believe Protestant theologians misinterpretation of the meaning of "Eloi, Eloi, Lamasabachthani", an interpretation that can be traced all the way back to the emerging theology of the Protestant Reformation, makes it impossible to understand what Paul taught us that allows us to see that our union with Christ is no mystery, but the actual factual bedrock upon which our relationship with God rests and our model of God is to be erected. I'll now try to show you what I see.
To save you some time, I'll run through a series of the most obvious passages where Paul develops the message concerning our union with Christ. As you read these passages reflect on whether Paul sounds like he's talking about a mystery.
Rm. 6:5-14 "If we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the resurrection. For we know that our old self (KJV, man) was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless (KJV, destroyed), that we should no longer be slaves to sin--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
"In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."
Rm. 7:1-6m, "Do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to men who know the law--that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
"So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Rm 8:1-17, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, you your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
"Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba,' Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory."
1 Cor. 6:13-17, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, 'The two will become one flesh.' But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit."
"Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."
Rm 12:4-5, "Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
2 Cor. 3:2,3,6, "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts...He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
2 Cor. 4:10-11, "We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body..."
2 Cor. 5:14-21, "For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
Gal. 2:20-21, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing."
Gal. 3:26-28, "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Eph. 1:22, "And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way."
Eph. 2:4-6, "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus..."
Eph. 2:13-16, "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."
Eph. 5:29-32, "After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--for we are members of his body. 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church."
Phil. 3:10-11, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."
Col. 1:22, "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation..."
Col. 2:9-17, "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been baptized with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
"When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."
Now let's take a look at Protestant orthodoxy's explanation of Paul's words. One of the better examples of how Protestant orthodoxy explains the pivotal ideas quoted above from Romans 6, "Don't you know that when you were baptized into Christ's death...etc." is found in C. I. Scofield's notes in his edition of the King James Version of the Bible. Scofield tells us, "In chapter 6 there are four key words which indicate the believer's personal responsibility in relation to God's sanctifying work: (1) to 'know' the facts of our union and identification with Christ in His death and resurrection (vv.3,6,9); (2) to 'reckon' or count these facts to be true concerning ourselves (v.11); (3) to 'yield' or present ourselves once for all as alive from the dead for God's possession and use (vv.13,16,19); (4) to 'obey' in the realization that sanctification can proceed only as we are obedient to the will of God as revealed in His Word (vv.16-17).
It is precisely at this point in Protestant theology's explanation of the meaning of Paul's words in Romans 6 that Protestant theology has issued a teaching which has resulted in massive confusion and fear being released in the Body of Christ and in the world. Notice that Scofield places great emphasis on the need for Christians to "know" the "facts" of our union with Christ. We are to "reckon" these "facts" to be true concerning ourselves. What is Scofield calling a "fact"? He is saying it is a fact that when Christ died, we died,; when Christ was buried, we were buried; when Christ rose from the grave, we rose from the grave. Scofield tells us we are to "reckon" this to be a "fact." But how did this "fact" occur? When faced with the most momentous, most absolutely mind-boggling event in the history of the universe, an event that, if fact, absolutely accomplishes the justification, sanctification and eternal life of the believer, can any sincere seeker of the truth avoid asking "How?" Surely our teachers would not expect us to treat this most momentous event in the history of the world differently than we treat any other fact. When we encounter startling facts, we ask how can such a thing be?
Now it is clear that certain questions we ask of God can only be answered in one way: the Bible said God did it; that's all there is to say about it; either believe it or deny it, the choice is up to you. Questions like, "How was the universe formed?" can only be answered in this way--The Bible says God said 'let there be light' and there was light. That settles it. How God created the heaven and the earth is not a subject that God intended for us to understand or he would have told us. But notice that even in this most exceedingly difficult question, God does provide ample and clear evidence designed by God to demonstrate the factual validity of what we are told in Genesis 1. Paul tells us the reason God is justified in condemning the world is precisely because everyone can see that God created the universe. We might not understand "how" God created the universe, but that He did create the universe God demonstrated in the physical world around us. "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shown it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse..." There we see a situation where God made sufficient evidence available to convince any reasonable person that God had in fact created the universe. Anything other than what the Bible tells us about how the universe was formed has to be understood to be theory, not fact. But that God created the universe is not theory, it is fact that is verified every time any person really looks at the things that have been made by God.
Nowhere in the Bible, when God asks us to believe an extraordinary event does He omit providing sufficient physical evidence to demonstrate the truth, the factual validity, of what He asks us to believe. For instance, God tells us the Holy Spirit impregnated the Virgin Mary. This might seem impossible to believe until we examine closely what the product that issued from the union between the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary accomplished. The factual validity of the Bible's explanation of the Virgin birth is verified by the miracles performed in the physical world by the man who began as a child formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary. All that is required from us is to give credibility to the ones who actually perceived the miracles to take place in the physical world and reported those miracles to us. When we see a person doing things that only God Himself could do, believing that person was conceived by God in the womb of a Virgin does not defy logic or reason. With the Virgin birth and the creation, the invisible things of God are understood by looking at the things that have been made. If we ignore the evidence He has provided, we are without excuse before God. How He did it was obviously not necessary for us to know or He would have told us. That He did it was the point.
Protestant theologians tell us how we came to be united with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection is a question like the two examples above, a question that God does not consider necessary for us to understand in order to be secure in His presence. Our union with Christ is a mystery, like the mystery of the virgin birth. We are to consider it to be a fact because God says it is a fact. And we are to look at the evidence of what God does in our lives when we believe what we are told to believe, and that evidence will convince us that we really are in union with Christ Jesus in His death, burial, and resurrection.
This is where things get scary. What if the evidence is not apparent? What if one does not see the fruit of the Spirit of Christ manifest in one's own life? Instead of love, and joy, and peace, and patience, and gentleness, and goodness, and faith, and meekness, and self-control, what if one finds oneself ensnared in a world where every action taken by the individual contributes to a system that is grinding the life out of tens of millions of people everyday, and will inevitably grind the life out of oneself? And what if that awareness utterly destroys one's peace of mind, one's joy, one's patience, one's gentleness, one's meekness, one's self-control? What if all one has left is the faith that Jesus Christ is alive and has done that which is supposed to provide something called salvation for those who trust in Him alone. How does one find peace of mind in such a situation? Normally we turn to our Christian leaders, our fellowship with other Christians who have been delivered from the grips of mortal sin, and in them and their fellowship we find the strength and the wisdom that guides us out of the situation that ensnares us. But in the situation I found myself in, fellow Christians were no help, because they were in exactly the same trap I was in, the only difference was most of them didn't even know they were trapped!
As God's grace would have it, I finally found a Christian who understood exactly what was happening to me, and knew exactly what to say to me so I could find escape. The reason he was able to do this was because he had one day found himself in exactly the same situation I was in. He shared his way of escape with me.
His name is Paul. He made peace of mind available to me as I listened to the Apostle Paul do everything in his power to tell me that my union with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection was not a mystery but an accomplished fact that, when grasped, allowed me to utterly transcend the world I found myself in.
Unfortunately, what the Apostle Paul taught me made me unfit for ordination in any existing Bible-believing Christian denomination I know about in this country. For in this conclusion, I come into mortal conflict with existing Christian orthodoxy. I call this unfortunate because, not only does it leave me without access to a regular forum form which to tell others about what Paul taught me, a forum from which I might exercise the gifts I have been given in order to glorify the Lord I love above all else, but it leaves others without easy access to what I have learned.
Why do I bother talking about this subject if in so doing I enter into conflict with fellow Christians? Am I not guilty in so doing of creating strife? And are not those who create strife to be shunned by the Church?
Strife in the Church occurs when error in doctrine has been accepted as the truth. There is no strife among God's people until error is called truth by God's people. From the moment God's people call error truth strife inevitably follows. The prophets argued vehemently with God's people but they did not create strife. The strife had been created by those who, in God's name, distorted the truth. What the prophets did cannot be accurately labeled strife because they were compelled by God to argue against those who had created strife by the introduction of error into the Church. Disagreement is not strife, discussion is not strife, even argument is not strife when the purpose is to overcome error. Defense of error creates strife.
But those who argue with Christian orthodoxy would be wise to tread lightly because if they are in error they will be fairly judged to be those who create strife. For this reason, this argument has been many years in the making. Each step of the way, I have been moved by forces beyond my control to take the next step. I call that which moved me "my God," and I believe my God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the absence of any other forum, my God left me no alternative but to write this book whose purpose is to demonstrate how the best theologians throughout history have failed to understand the Jesus Paul taught.
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