CHAPTER TWELVE

As I struggled to understand how God could forgive me for participating in a system that grinds the life out the least and weakest among us, Paul's words describing my union with Christ echoed through my consciousness in unceasing clarity. I wanted more than anything I ever wanted to experience the reality the words described: I wanted to know I had died with Christ, that I had been buried with Christ, that I was risen with Christ. But I could not experience that reality. The only reality I could see was myself in a world where every action I took contributed to the world going closer to hell. Why was my faith so weak? Why could I not know that I had died with Christ, been buried with Christ, been raised with Christ? Why was I unable to believe this in a way that stilled the terror troubling my soul? I earnestly begged my God for light.

One thing was clear to me: Paul believed it to be a fact that when Christ died, Paul died with him. After much prayer and seeking, by God's grace I have seen what Paul saw. I heard Paul say, "...in him we live and move and have our being..." and I understood what Paul was trying to tell me. I have seen what made Paul known as surely as Paul knew anything that when Jesus died Paul died with him, that when Jesus was buried, Paul was buried with him, that when Jesus was raised from the grave, Paul was raised with him. Not only Paul but me too! And you! You too, if you will but see it.

"And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

"Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called 'uncircumcision' by those who call themselves 'the circumcision' (that done in the body by the hands of men)--remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 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. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we have access to the Father by one Spirit."

And listen to this! "He is before all things and in him all things hold together." What could Paul have possibly meant if not this: Jesus contains all things within Himself, only with this understanding in mind is it possible to understand how "in him all things hold together." Jesus from eternity contained within himself all that God contains within himself.

Christian orthodoxy has long held that nothing in the universe can be seen to be outside God, neither space nor time, nor any thing in heaven or hell is outside God. Yet the universe is not the entirety of God. God is wholly other than the universe, yet contains the universe of space and time within Himself. To Paul, Jesus contained within himself everything that God contained.

Paul could say that when one died, all died, because Paul knew that whatever happened to Jesus happened to the universe of space and time because that universe was contained in "Christ's physical body." "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ..." How have we been given fullness? Because when Christ died we were there, when he was buried, we were buried, when he was raised from the dead, we were there--in him, in his physical body.

But how could my body have been contained within the physical body of Jesus when he died on the cross nearly two thousand years ago? This is the central question of our salvation. Every theologian for thousands of years has known God contains time within himself. Do you think Paul didn't know this? Time is a creation of God. Time has no existence independent of God. God created "in the beginning." With God alone there is no beginning or end--God is eternal. Time only has reality as a measurement of things that begin and end. Until the creation of the universe there was no time. When God created time he created it not to extend out from him in a way that separated time from God. All time existed within Him in the same way space exists within God. All space exists within God simultaneously: as Paul said, "In Him, we live, and move, and have our being..." There is no where outside God. In the same way God contains within Himself all time simultaneously. This fact is in view when Scripture says, "God knows the end from the beginning."

  That which God contains in himself is contained in the physical body of Jesus. Paul phrased the point this way: "He is the fullness of the Godhead, bodily revealed." Jesus possesses all the attributes of the Father. As the Father contains space and time within Himself, so too did Jesus contain space and time within Himself. When the physical body of Jesus was on the cross all time was contained within his body, and all that was contained within that time was there also.

Any instant of time contains within it the universe of space and matter. This very second contains within it all the earth, the planets, the stars in the heavens--all that is is contained within this second, except God. God contains this second. Because God created this second and every second that ever was or ever will be. And God contains all those individual seconds within himself simultaneously. Since all the fullness of the Deity lived in the bodily form of Jesus, Jesus, too, contained all time within himself simultaneously.

That's how we died in Christ in the body. The very second Jesus died on the cross, a second that occurred on a particular day in a particular place, that second contained all of particular days and places within it because all those things were contained within the physical body of Jesus Christ! This second was contained within his flesh. This day was contained within his flesh. Yesterday was contained in his flesh and tomorrow was contained in his flesh. All that ever has been, and all that ever will be, was contained in his flesh, because he, Jesus of Nazareth was the "fullness of the godhead, bodily revealed." That's why God moved the writer of Hebrews to say these words, "Therefore God set aside a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.'

There we see God group all days into a single element of time that he called "Today". In the same way God brought all time into a single element in the physical body of Jesus. I believe this exact scene is what Paul has in mind when he says to the Corinthians, "As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, 'In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.' I (Paul) tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation."

Christian teachers and preachers normally tell people that if they will just believe in Christ they can be saved today. But how can they say that? Paul could say it because he knew the day of God's favor, the day of salvation was the day Jesus died on the cross. On that day, the wall of separation between God and man was broken down, and people could enter the Holy of Holies through the door that is the flesh of Jesus Christ. Paul could call that day "today" because Paul knew that today is literally contained within the flesh of Jesus Christ as he hangs on the cross outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago.

In this way the penalty of the law was fulfilled, for all died. Literally, everything that ever has been or ever will be died when Christ's physical body died on the cross. Everything that ever has been or ever will be was buried with Christ, and everything that ever has been or ever will be was raised in Christ Jesus. The law that had been a wall between God and man was fulfilled.

The penalty was paid. The law slew us all in Christ Jesus. And that's all the law can do to sinners; that's all the law was ever intended to do. It did its work. Now we are free from the curse of the law...if we believe what happened that day in Christ on the cross.

There is a sense in which christians have always believed this, have always "reckoned" it to be a fact. The problem is christians do not now, and have not since the days of the Apostle Paul, understood how they died in Christ. Christians have heard the words of the Apostle Paul and have concluded to follow Scofield's advice in his notes to 2 Corinthians 5:14) "All believers are regarded by God as having died with Christ. We must, therefore, count upon this being so, and live accordingly."

With all due respect, these are the words of a man who doesn't understand what the Apostle Paul was trying to tell us about our union with Christ. Scofield tells us that "all believers are regarded by God as having died with Christ." Scofield is absolutely correct as far as he goes. But he doesn't go as far as Paul went. Paul went further. Paul not only tells us that we died in Christ because we are regarded by God as having died with Christ, Paul also tried to tell us how we could also regard ourselves to have died, and not just because the Bible says so, but because we can see it for ourselves. The result of Scofield's message is to lead believers to accept a reality which they don't understand. Yet we are to live our life based on that belief.

But that's the problem! How can we live our life any differently than we ever lived it if we don't understand that we actually, literally, physically died when Christ died! The guilt of every violation of God's commandments still wrenches us with fear that we still owe God the penalty for our sins. Oh yes, we remind ourselves we're supposed to believe that God regards us as having died when Christ died, and that our sins are forgiven. But if we don't understand it to be a fact that we DID die, then the only fact that controls us is the fact that we haven't truly died yet.

What we hold to be fact is that which we have experienced to be true. We might decide to believe everything in the Bible is true, but if we never get any evidence to base that belief upon, that decision will be sorely tested when the waves start to slap and the winds start to blow. There is evidence available that can let you know you died in Christ. One way or another, you can know it for a fact. Paul meant for you to understand that, one way or another, your union with Christ is the foundational fact upon which the universe actually rests.

Here's what Paul tells us that lets us know, one way or another, we're actually in Jesus' body. 2 Corinthians 12:1-6, "I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows. And I know that this man--whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows--was caught up to Paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weakness. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain , so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say."

In dealing with the Church at Corinth, Paul understood clearly that there was some things they simply could not understand. Here is how Paul explained why they had difficulty understanding the things of God in I Cor. 3:1-2, "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready." Well, ready or not, here it comes.

The third heaven was understood to be the place where God lived. Out past the clouds (heaven number one) the stars (heaven number two) the third heaven was Paradise itself. To enter the third heaven was to enter the domain outside space and time where God was all in all. Paul is the man he talks about who went to that place. Paul tells us that he, Paul, entered the third heaven, Paradise.

Paul wasn't sure whether he went there in the body or out of the body. Paul knew that God knew the answer to that question. Paul was satisfied with that.

What was important was he had been there. How did Paul enter the third heaven? In Christ. "I know a man in Christ who, fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven." What happened in the third heaven? Paul doesn't say. It was heavy, though. And Paul understood what happened. The only thing he wasn't sure of was whether it was "in the body or out of the body." Paul didn't know that--God knows.

I deny that Paul's union with Christ was a mystery to Paul. The only question that remained to Paul was whether his union with Christ was in the body or out of the body. Apparently, that was a mystery. But it was clear to Paul that he was in Christ either in the body or out of the body. Either one or the other.

My argument with the Church occurs because the Fathers of the Church have presented an explanation of our union with Christ that acts as if our spiritual (out of the body) union with Christ is the only explanation that Scripture allows in explanation of our union with Christ. When Scofield tells us that we are to believe God regarded us to have died with Christ, Scofield is describing an "out of the body" union with Christ. It is an "out of the body" union because we cannot see any way our body could have actually been involved in the union. The "out of the body" union occurs from God's point of view, and we can't see anything about how it happens. God tells us it happened and we believe it even though we can see nothing about it from our point of view. I believe Paul's statement in 2 Cor. 12 makes it clear that we possibly could be in union with Christ "out of the body". So far Scofield and all other Protestant teachers are in accord with Paul. They enter into error and leave Paul, and therefore God, behind when they stop with the mystic "out of the body" union. They are in error because Paul told us there was another way he could have entered into the presence of God: in the body. "...whether in the body or out, I do not know--God knows." The Protestant Church has ignored this statement of Paul and developed an explanation of our union with Christ that makes it impossible for Christians to conceive how we could be in union with Christ in the body. With Paul our union with Christ was either in the body or out of the body, with Protestant theology our union with Christ is only out of the body. That is an error that distorts the explanation of salvation offered by the Apostle Paul and creates a model of God different from the model of God communicated by the Apostle Paul.

At first glance this might seem to be a mighty trivial matter founded on what many have called an ambiguous comment by the Apostle Paul. But we must pay particular attention to the context within which Paul utters the amazing story about the "man he knew." As Paul reels off a list of things that qualify him to exercise spiritual authority over the Church in Corinth he has in mind much more than the activities and suffering he has gone through to prove his loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul also has in view the things he understands about God and God's plan of salvation that equips him to oversee the people of God. Foremost in that equipment is Paul's knowledge of his union with Christ. When Paul reaches the place where he talks about the man who went to the third heaven, Paul is bringing into mind the very essence of what he understands about God. And that was this: in Christ Jesus, God brought mankind into one body, a body that could be transported directly into the presence of God Himself. When Paul says, "whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know," he is stating the two possible explanations for "how" God brought mankind into one body.

An "out of the body" union is the mystic union taught by Protestant theologians today. Essentially, the out of the body union is a "spiritual" union in the sense that the union between the believer and Christ is something that the Spirit of God does and we really don't have a clue how it could happen. God does it, that's about all we can say about it. In that sense the "out of the body" union is truly a mystic union.

But Paul saw another possibility: we could have been transported to the presence of God in the body. Protestant orthodoxy creates an explanation that makes it impossible to conceive what Paul defined as one of the two possible explanations for how he came to be united with Christ. Paul meant for us to know there were TWO explanations, Protestant orthodoxy only offers us one. That is error. That is the error I am griping about. That error must be corrected.

Protestant orthodoxy has historically interpreted Paul's statements in II Corinthians about "the man" who ascended to the third heaven by presuming that Paul was talking about an experience that was very limited in scope and content. Even though most commentators seem to agree with Philip E. Hughes's insight as noted in The New International Commentary on the New Testament that Paul is "disclosing what was probably the most intimate and sacred of all his religious experiences as a Christian", all the commentators insist on confining the experience to a very narrow frame of reference; namely, something "unique" that happened to Paul on a particular day and then ceased to happen. Hughes tells us, "This experience was, as far as we know, (italics mine) granted to no other person..." Further, Hughes presumes to conclude that Paul has never mentioned this event to anyone before his letter to the Corinthians. Discussing the implications of what Paul means when he says "He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell..." Hughes tells us this statement by Paul implies "that for the past fourteen years, since its occurrence, he had forborne to speak, let alone boast, to others about this unique privileged experience."

The misunderstanding can be partially explained by examining how commentators have interpreted these words: "He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell." Hughes explains the passage this way: "In Paradise Paul heard words unspeakable. This paradoxical language indicates that the revelation he received on this occasion was incapable of translation into human and earthly terminology. It was an ineffable communication intended for him alone, which also, even if it were possible, it was not lawful for him to repeat."

Insight into the greek words used by Paul shows us how Hughes could have arrived at his interpretation. Since Hughes has interpreted "unspeakable" to mean "impossible to communicate", it seems logical to him that when Paul tells us it is not lawful to talk about the things he saw and heard he is simply explaining why it is impossible to communicate the things he saw and heard in the third heaven. According to Hughes, Paul heard "inexpressible things" because he was not permitted by God to talk about the things he heard.

But "Oux Exon", the phrase usually translated "it is not lawful", or, and in NIV "it is not permitted" can also be translated "it is not possible". Where "not permitted" and "not lawful" carry the connotation that Paul is somehow being restricted by God from talking about what he heard, the phrase "it is not possible" forces us to look to the context of the letter for insight into why it was not possible for Paul to talk about the things he heard in the third heaven.

If we look, we do not have to look far before we see one very logical reason why Paul might not have been able to talk about the things he heard in the third heaven: Paul was writing the Church at Corinth. Anybody who has ever read Paul's two letters to Corinth and who has failed to see that the brothers and sisters there were having some major problems getting their model of God in focus simply weren't paying attention when they read, or their eyes were blinded to the meaning of the message. Both letters are replete with examples proving that Paul is clearly not pleased with Corinth's progress in understanding the things of God. From his first letter throughout the second there are many examples of Paul explaining things in baby-talk, and in other examples simply omitting talking about some things entirely. For example, in I Corinthians 3:1-1, Paul tells Corinth, "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready." Earlier, in Chapter two, Paul defined precisely what he had confined his message to: "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." In light of such statements, it is at least tenable to suggest that when Paul talked about seeing "inexpressible things" in the third heaven, things that were not possible for Paul to talk about, Paul could have simply been repeating what he had said many times to Corinth: there were aspects of the message God was sending to the Church that Corinth--and Corinth alone--was not ready to hear.

When we realize that it is actually possible to interpret Paul's statement in the context I have described, suspicion concerning the accuracy of orthodoxy's interpretation of the passage in question is generated. Suspicions deepen when we realize that on other occasions Paul actually talks about a situation where believers as well as Paul can be seen to actually dwell at the present time in Christ in the presence of God in the third heaven. There is a clear logical connection between the statement Paul makes in II Corinthians 12 and other very similar statements made by Paul. For instance, when Paul tells the Ephesians, "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus" the logical context for his words can be seen to refer to precisely the same context Paul has in view in II Corinthians twelve. The "heavenly realms" is simply another way of referring to the same reality referred to by the concept "the third heaven". Both symbols denote the "place" where God Himself dwells. Also, in the letter to the Colossians, Paul refers us to the same context: "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life in now hidden with Christ in God..." Now compare these two statements to what Paul tells us in II Corinthians 12: "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was raised up to the third heaven..." In each example, Paul is discussing a situation in which individuals are transported in Christ into the presence of God Himself. The symbols used by Paul in each of the three examples refer to precisely the same reality. While no respectable commentator would deny that in the Ephesians and Colossians examples Paul is discussing an ongoing reality that includes all Christians, every commentator is quick to describe the message in II Corinthians as a reference to an experience "unique" to Paul that happened once fourteen years before Paul wrote the letter, then ceased. No commentator sees the connection between the examples. Exceedingly strange.

If you see the connection between the symbolism employed in the Ephesians and Colossians examples I quoted and the II Corinthians passage, then you are beginning to see why I understand the II Corinthians passage to have pivotal significance in our model of God. Clearly, the Ephesians passage and Colossians passage are Paul's attempt to explain to us the reality of our union with Christ. If there is a parallel connection between those passages and the II Corinthians passage, then Paul is telling us something in the II Corinthians passage that he tells us nowhere else in his writings. In II Corinthians, Paul explains to us that our union with Christ is either in the body, or out of the body.

I have made much about the Church teaching that our union with Christ was a mystic union. I am upset about this because if we were going to talk about these things at all, we were at least obligated to tell everything Paul had to say, exactly the way he would have said it had he decided to talk about it to the Church at Corinth. Since the cat is out of the bag, we simply do not have the option of avoiding talking about it as Paul did in his letter to Corinth. In light of what I have said about the II Corinthians passage, it should be clear now that Protestant theologians laid the groundwork for somebody to come at them with this argument I now bring the day they decreed our union with Christ to be a mystic "out of the body" union.

If my interpretation of the II Corinthians passage is accurate, Paul knew our union with Christ could have happened either one of two ways. Did you get that? Either way! "Whether in the body or out, I do not know--God knows." The point is, God could have done it either way! Not just one way, the mystic way; he could have also done it the other way--in the body. Since God allowed the Church to fall into the error of telling people our union with Christ could have occurred only one way, it is likely God intended to use this error to make us focus our attention on the other way God could have brought us into union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

If you are in Christ Jesus, God does not intend for you to believe the miracle he has wrought in Christ Jesus just because he says so. God wants you to perceive the marvelous fact he created for us in Christ Jesus. He wants you the KNOW your salvation. He does not want you to define faith as an act of the will that defies the evidence, he wants you to perceive the facts upon which our salvation rests. In Christ, God has made that way possible. But we cannot perceive the reality unless the teachers of God's Word accurately relay the message of the Apostles to us. When Protestant theologians taught us that our union with Christ could only be understood to be a mystic union, our teachers entered into error--gross, world-changing error.

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