Hi Terry,
Thank you for asking for
clarification. Let me know if what I say next does not make sense and
I will attempt to be clearer. I appreciate any time I can work on
articulating my beliefs.
1) Always remember the
unassumed is the unhealed: I believe that Christ Who inhabited a human
body cleansed it from all impurity in His daily walk with the Spirit.
I believe this includes our sinful nature. The only way Jesus can give
us full healing is if He fully heals us. If He healed us without
touching our sinful nature we would still be sick. This is the new
creation Paul speaks of. We can live according to our sinful nature
(Paul speaks of it as the flesh) or we can embrace what Christ healed
and live by the Spirit. If there is any part of us that has not been
taken up in Christ and made new we are lost. If Jesus only became
partly human and did not face life as we face it He cannot truly
represent us. What I am saying is that God's salvation does not leave
anything out; it is full, rich, and complete.
2) Your question is: If Jesus took on himself ALL,
why are some few saved and many lost? ( I agree that He died for all
that would receive Him, but His sacrifice was wasted by most). I think we need to redefine what we mean
by salvation in light of who Jesus Christ has disclosed Himself as
being. Most of us start with the passages that seem to imply that few
are saved instead of starting with the One who does the saving, our
Savior. I am suggesting a radical way of interpreting these type of
texts: Begin with who Jesus is and work out our doctrines and proof
passages from there. (By the way this is why we all still love
Judy, Izzy and myself. We begin with who we know they are in Christ,
not with the attitudes expressed in their/my posts. We know how
valuable we are in Christ and when it all comes down to it that is what
is important). When we say the name Jesus Christ we are
saying God and we are saying humanity and we are saying God and
humanity together. Christ says that He came to take away the
sin of the world. I take Him at His word on this. I start with His
stated purpose in Ephesians chapter one - to adopt us.
In the garden of Eden the most
terrible thing occurred. Satan convinced Adam and Eve that they were
separated from God. All of a sudden we had a huge chasm between God
and us. Now somehow we needed to convince and appease God to accept
us. The God of love who created us now was the God of hate who
couldn't stand to even look at us. We had become despicable to God,
unacceptable in His sight. These lies have been with us ever since.
Most people ignore the fact that God came down to earth after the Fall
and clothed Adam and Eve. He was fully able to spend time with
sinners. He was fully able to love and care for them, to accept them.
Jesus continued this scandalous behavior when He hung out with
sinners. We have a concept in our mind that is completely alien to the
Father's heart. We believe that sin is greater than God, that God's
love and acceptance are completely hindered by it.
That sin keeps us from being
accepted by God is the biggest lie we have ever been told. What sin
does is keep us from fully working out our relationship with our
heavenly Father. It does not keep us from the relationship itself.
This is what the Pharisees could not understand. It is what gets Judy
all uppity. In their paradigm God hates not just sin but sinners.
There is no place for God to be fellowshipping with those that have not
done the required conditions they have spent so much time making. If
God hates sinners why did he lovingly clothe them? Why did he remove
them from the garden of Eden to ensure that they would not eat from the
Tree of Life damning them forever? If He really hated sinners He could
have done that. But God said NO. That is not what I created you for!
Why did He fellowship with them when He came as the God-man? If He
really hated them one would think He would ignore them and remove them
from fellowship. Why is it so hard for us to believe that God
is for us? Now this in no way removes the fact that there are
grave consequences of sin; however, a relationship with God is not one
of them. This is why Paul states that while we were still sinners
Christ died for us. Jesus is greater than Adam! Jesus is greater than
our sin! Repentance is when we turn from our sin towards the loving
embrace of Jesus. This is a continual process that we have to do
daily. This continual repentance is not a condition of the gospel; it
is a response. Salvation took place at the cross when Jesus died and
rose again. Paul is clear about this. When He rose, we rose. This is
why the gospel is good news.
Now I do believe that people can
opt out of this. They can choose to not want anything to do with
Jesus. It is these people that will populate hell. However the Bible
states that all things move and have their being in Jesus, that apart
from Him there is nothing. This must include hell. This means that
hell is not outside of Jesus Christ.
It is not that few are saved.
Rather it is few that come to a knowledge of it, few who believe on
what Christ has done for them. Christ's life, death, resurrection and
ascension was never a waste. It is living proof of how strongly God
desires us. It is what leads you and me to worship.
Jonathan Hughes
