LIFE

For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:9-14

Paul’s prayer is what he profoundly longed to see in the lives of these he ministered to. This life of which he speaks, is nothing less than the result of inner transformation, spiritual transformation, a life of grace in the One who has been transferred into life in the ‘Kingdom of His Beloved Son’.

All of this is the result of life, in being risen with Christ beyond death.

1 Corinthians 15:17 “If Christ had not been risen you would still be dead in your sins.”What about the cross? The cross must never be presented without the resurrection. You don’t have a cross that means anything without a resurrection. Without resurrection you have a dead salvation that does not relate to the present spiritual life in Christ of the believer. For Jesus, life was the issue.

This is why we must get past a view of atonement in which all that matters is that Jesus has taken the punishment for our sins. The problem with such a reductionist view of the gospel is evident in the lives of many who limit it to such. What about discipleship? It is viewed as not required or even irrelevant to the status of our now ‘saved’ condition. Why? Because ‘saved’ has been reduced in meaning to my sins having been forgiven.

LET ME EMPHASIZE (because it is ever apparent that I now must say what I don’t mean by what I say!): It does indeed mean the glorious truth that my sins are forever forgiven, without which any hope of change, transformation, discipleship, eternal life, heaven would be an unreachable hope. Of course it is forgiveness, it is not just forgiveness.

The theme in the New Testament is life, regeneration, who we are becoming and becoming like Christ. From God’s perspective the basic truth of salvation is the impartation of life. Over and over this truth is proclaimed.

1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…

and 1 John 3:1-3 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

Without this truth, inner change (spiritual transformation) is seen as an oddity, irrelevant, perhaps a bit ‘monkish’ or even heretical. But if understood from the perspective of a new life received from above, then it can be seen as a transformation in this life. A progressive transformation because who we are becoming is of primary importance to God the King.