In the fifth chapter of The
Soul of God, Ray Anderson relates that “to know God is to be reconciled to
God, and in being reconciled to God we come to know God” (p. 71). He expands on this, lest we think that the
act of reconciliation is something we do, “both revelation and reconciliation take
place through our being in Christ and Christ being in us” (p. 72).
Allow me to offer a length quotation by Anderson that helps us
understand the necessity of Jesus in being reconciled to God.
“It would not be wrong to say that Jesus is the true
believer, whose own faith in the Father becomes the basis for our faith in such
a way that we are freed from the ambivalence and inward uncertainty which
always plague our own attempt to believe.
It would not be wrong to say that Jesus is also the true disciple, whose
own obedience lived out in the face of temptation in such a way that we are
freed from our own instability and unreliability of will. . . .
Every day of his life, Jesus took that human will and bent it back in
perfect obedience to his Father so that in being joined to Christ our will is
graciously conformed to his own willingness, which exists to this very day in
the humanity of Christ now glorified and existing within the very being of God. This is the basis for our assurance in union
with Christ through being made partakers of Christ through the Spirit. There is part of God in us through the
indwelling Spirit of Christ. The Christ
who in us, says Paul, is our ‘hope of glory’ (Col. 1:27). At the same time, Paul says, our ‘life is
hidden with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3).
This means that there is something of us already abiding in the very
presence of God through Christ!” (p. 72)
As I reflect on this statement, on this confession, my
response, during this week of Thanksgiving – but also during any week – is one
of giving thanks and praise to God. God’s
mission is not merely about effecting some grand recreation; God’s mission is
indeed very personal in which in our being reconciled to God through Christ
Jesus, there is a part of God in us, and a part of us in God – meaning we are
brought into community with God – participating and sharing in the life of God
and God participating and sharing in our lives.
I am not talking about our becoming divine – we have been created human
and that is our gift from God – but God always intended that we in our humanity
would be in community with God. The good
news of Jesus Christ – of God with us as a human being – is that we have been
restored to being in community with God through Jesus. In God being human among us in Jesus – we are
invited into community, into relationship with God through Jesus. Indeed, this is a thanksgiving that my words
are incapable of fully expressing – which can only adequately and minimally
expressed in worship of God.
Join me this Thanksgiving in giving worship to God through Jesus Christ.
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