In Mark 12 we read, Jesus answer to the scribes [lawyers] question; which is the first commandment? Jesus answer was as follows; "The Lord our God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,with all your soul, with all you mind and with all your strength and the second is like it, [the first] you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than this." The scribe continued the dialog and evidently answered correctly, as Jesus said "by your answer you are not far from the Kingdom of God". What the scribe had was knowledge of Kingdom law, not nearness to salvation.
We often hear in Christian circles the love your neighbor as yourself, not often that which comes before. To be honest I hope most would admit failure at accomplishing any fulfillment to these commandments. I once heard a pastor say just fulfill these commandments and then feel free do do what ever you want, because you would for sure be in Gods favor and under His guidance if you were following them, and I agree! What I have learned about the Gospels is that while they were written for us they were not written entirely too us; meaning Just as Jesus was a Jew living under the law, His ministry and therefore His statements as recorded in the Gospels were to Jews also under the law. Just read the sermon on the mount and then try to apply the concept of living out our Christian lives under their precepts, the Sermon represents a human responsibility, no justification by faith here, no room for the grace of God ever abounding for the saint. The fact of a new creation [us] procured and secured in the Resurrection of Christ is in no way even hinted at in this address. I won't go on with a dispensation study, as this blog is about me and my growth. I'll leave the book learning to you. However if I may offer a hard learned lesson, no study no growth, its your call.
We are called to a much greater accomplishment, in the new creation than mere commandments, which we can not follow anyway, and praise God the yoke and burden of our new calling is light. We are caught up in the very nature of that which is of Christ, which includes being dead to any need to follow the rules, and precepts of a narrow path, even though we actually do.
I've heard it said a man may die for a lie he believes is true, but no man would die if he knew it was for a lie, According to my understanding, all but perhaps one of the Apostles were killed for their teaching of Christianity. When I think of Jesus on the Cross, as a man with the same feelings as I, suffering in that mans personality for the justification of a people not yet even born, and that He as a man, could not know, the sacrifice becomes overwhelming. His place on the cross was not one of Godly understanding as to His suffering, but rejection by the Father who's power and oneness he had walked and taught in and was confident of. He however knew before the cross that the burden was all His as a human son of man, a Adam. The strength He carried was in the Joy that was set before Him. What was that joy? His presence at the Throne of God in fulfilling The Fathers will, as a Glorified Resurrected New Adam in representation of us, including dieing in the flesh, as a Man. The realization of this leads me to see the love for my neighbor as myself as insufficient under the shadow of Christ on His Cross. It is no longer about me are my neighbor, but now I must see by the understanding of my presence under that same reproach as Christ. A new calling indeed.
The man here [me] and as portrayed in Mark's Gospel, is a man under the law, the me, a man in the flesh, with the nature of the first Adam . My neighbor are all those encountered. The I, in my life now, is the new man, the spiritual man, and that man can only be established in the presence of God by The Son. The Son occupies me by His Holy Spirit, which can only glorify the Son, as the Son can only glorify the Father. The Son before the Father as our Representative has suffered and died, as a man, giving all for his neighbor, a complete sacrifice and therefore, we as grafted in members of the very blood of that sacrifice, also have our presence before the Father under the mantel of the very same circumstance as our Saviour. In other words, the I of us, now as born again Christians are to see our life in the light of that sacrifice. We too live by dying, but to ourselves, the old me, the natural Adam in his sin nature, by seeing this truth. This is the heart of your actual position in the spirit [your mind] and the only hope of glorifying God, in action and deed , function and form in a conscious appropriation of that which we have, but must seek to experience, by knowledge of the positional doctrine. That was where my weakness kept me hidden all those years, lack of knowledge of the identification I held in Christ, my Christianity was cloistered in a self centered me.
" But rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that, when his glory shall be reveled, you may be glad also with exceeding joy." Its amazing how the Bible makes clear where the Christian's attributes are to be found, that is, in all that Jesus Christ is now and in all that he suffered on earth. So I ask myself, must I take on a voluntary life of suffering, a humble place such as perhaps Mother Teresa, are as displayed so well in scripture, the extreme suffering of a Paul? If I remain in the me of Marks Gospel, I must love my Adamic self, which would insure my neighbor receives the same benevolent treatment I would enjoy a most self centered position. That is the posture of the old [pre. salvation] personality when defined in those terms. But hold on, If Christ came to do away with the old man which must be rejected by a Holy God, and was on the Cross, then that cannot be where our perception of our Christian life should be defined.
Just where are we to find ourselves, if our value to God is seen in His Sons earthly humbled stature, a man who was destined for abject rejection, and now is glorified at the Fathers Right Hand? All that we are to the Father is found in Christ and He is in Heaven. Our spiritual position and identification is there also, since we are existing in Him, but we remain here on earth, the land of His persecution, a place where all was against Him. So under this Biblical definition we must see ourselves under the same reproach as our Lord, thus rejected, as we are as He was, dwellers on the earth. The realization of this truth places us In two locations at once, spiritually in Heaven, our glorified position, and in our bodies which hold the old Adam personality, we are subjected to rejection and the evil in of the world, where He suffered. In the Adamic me this is my condition. In the" I " I am in His Company, now and forever held hidden in Him by that which He suffered.
If you are having a tough time understanding these concepts, please click back to my earlier blogs where I build on these deeper concepts. I have been told my writing is becoming more profound and therefore more difficult to perceive. I say, thank you Lord I must be growing! Next week I will attempt to explain position/identification in a Biblical conceptual yet simpler terminology.
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