FALLEN

One aspect of Christianity that we accept but don’t seem to really deal with is our fallenness. We are comfortable with the notion of fallenness as it pertains to the pre-Christian. A person who does not know Christ does not have what Christians have: they are called lost, unchurched, etc. They are living with the full impact of the fallenness of mankind, the wound sustained in the garden of Eden, to which healing is not possible until the precious blood of Christ is applied to it.
But what about on the other side of a salvific encounter with Christ? How much of what we do as Christians is, or can be, impacted by our fallenness, regardless of our attempts at Biblical fidelity? We have to come to grips first with the fact that because we are saved does not mean that we no longer have fallen tendencies. Any honest Christian – one who is seeking to walk with Christ daily – repents regularly of sins he or she is convicted of. Thus she or he is coming face to face with the fallenness that is part of the human condition and does not go away when Christ comes in. What Christ offers us is forgiveness for sin and a future inheritance in His kingdom. What Christ does not offer us (at least according to my reading of Scripture, and perhaps my theological biases, along with a healthy dose of 42 years of living) is the promise of never sinning again while we are in the flesh. Even the Apostle Paul admitted struggling with sin, he who was entrusted with communicating in large measure what Christ intended for the people who would confess His name and represent Him on earth.
But for the Christian can and does his fallenness impact his theological predispositions, church culture, and even his self-image? Is the Christian exempt from the impact of her fallenness as she deals with life in Christ? If she is what is she to do? If he is, to where does he turn?
Scripture of course, correct? But if one is reading Scripture through fallen glasses, how can he know that he is grasping what God intended? If one is thinking with a well-meaning yet still somewhat bent theological thinker, how can she achieve the understanding God intends?
For me the answer is community. Talking with our chronological contemporaries and reading our chronological predecessors, we must humbly take our issues before the Word and interact with others to see how we can move forward in this Christian life. This community has to be diverse, though. If it is not, then it will suffer the impact of group-fallenness. For the natural result of a group of people who are fallen but vibe on key cultural issues is a potentially fallen culture, a culture which can become a stagnant pool of dead religion than a life-filled river of faith in action.
The very fact that we seem to set up scenarios for ourselves in which we seek to avoid the impact of the collision of cultures so that the impact of our fallenness on our faith can be confronted, reveals our fallenness…

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

In the Bible it is written that the cross is foolishness to those that do not believe, but the power of God to believers (1 Corinthians 1:18). The cross, where Jesus died, represents giving oneself over totally to the purposes of God, and trusting God for the results. Part of the results of Christ’s utter obedience to God took place three days later, on that Resurrection Sunday. God in His power raised Christ from the dead! More of the results occur each time someone repents of his or her sin, trusts in Christ, and experiences life with the indwelling Holy Spirit of God.

Luke 9:23 “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

When we celebrate Resurrection Sunday, we should also affirm our own trust that God will raise us up in His time, though we currently give ourselves over to His purposes daily. The Christian faith is not only about the one-time experience of trusting Christ, but daily ongoing acknowledgment of the Christian’s dependence on God as Lord. Our life is to be cruciform, self-denying and God-affirming. This plays itself out in eliminating from our lives things that compete with God for control of our thoughts and actions. Living a cruciform life means seeking the good of others, physically and especially spiritually. I often want to respond sharply to my wife when I feel I am being treated unfairly. To live a cruciform life is to hold my tongue and not be so infatuated with asserting myself in defense.

1 Peter 2:22-23 “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”

On Resurrection Sunday we who rejoice in the resurrection should remember that it is a promise from the ultimate Promise Keeper for an eternity to come. While we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and are called to be a holy people (1 Peter 1:14-16), the truth is that on this side of eternity, we are in spiritual war. We are battling against the enemy and even our flesh in our pursuit to bring honor to God in our lives. But we rejoice that God is good and He can and will save us to the uttermost. So we can claim the resurrection as our future, as a promise from God, and yet we remember that on this side of eternity, our life is the cross.

Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”